Connecting my Samsung Plasma to my Qute2

Hi Bart,

I might be wrong, but my guess is that your TV will encode anything passing through the optical output in plain linear stereo PCM, whichever the source signal might be. I know that this is the way both my TV and blu-ray player work. Therefore, your DAC shouldn't have any difficulty dealing with the signal.

Best regards,

Christian

Thanks Christian,

For the cost of the cable it will be worth trying.

I connected my LCD Samsung tv to my UnitiQute with a pretty cheap digical optical cable, and I've been quite disappointed with the SQ! Do I need to buy an expensive cable?

Bart,

I should have been more precise: both my TV and my blu-ray player will encode (multichannel) DTS streams read off a blu-ray into stereo linear PCM when passed through the optical out, due to its bandwidth limitation (among other things); (multichannel) dolby digital streams read off a DVD will either be encoded into stereo linear PCM OR passed through as is, as dolby digital streams don't reach the optical out bandwidth limitation.

Therefore, you might want to check whether your TV allows you to specify the encoding of the output signal or not. If not, DVD streams might be output in their original dolby digital form, which your DAC might not be able to handle. Still, for the cost of the cable, it will be worth trying, as you said!

Edouard,

In this case, I'm afraid the price of the cable won't have much of an impact when it comes to sound quality. Others might disagree, though.

Regards,

Christian

Hi guys

I have just purchased a 5m TOSlink cable, that connects my Sony 40" TV to my Supernait. The Supernait will only accept PCM stereo. I attempted to put Dolby Digital through it and got this terrible distortion through my speakers. The Sony does give the option of PCM stereo, or Dolby Digital. So I was able to choose PCM. 

Thanks for that David!  I need to check my Samsung plasma to see if I can do that same thing.  I suspect that the Qute won't like Dolby Digital either.

I'm sure your Tv will only be able to output 2 channel in PCM form, so your Qute2 should be fine with that.

Hello Bart,

As others have mentioned, hopefully your TV has a PCM option for 2ch stereo output. I use the optical out with my Toshiba TV into my DAC/XPS2 and am quite impressed. Even other people noticed the improvement. Before I was running fixed-output RCAs straight into the preamp.

Edouard, I had a long optical made and also wonder if a better cable would impress or not. Let's be honest, the source does not warrant Sarum-level cable. But it's always possible you just got a bad cable. Maybe worth trying another one, just don't spend too much. 

Arun

Arun,

I am not trying to be impressed, but switching from the sound a 32" lcd tv amp/tinyspeakers to the Qute amp and decent bookshelve speakers should make quite a difference which in my case is not really the case eventhough it's a bit better but just a tad...

I remember plugging my big Philips cathodique previous tv directly to some mini speakers (from a mini stereo system) and being really impressed which the huge difference it made.

...hence I believe that connecting the lcd tv to a Naim system, even  with a cheap optic cable, should make a big difference.

Well this worked quite well.  I purchased a long and relatively inexpensive  Bluerigger brand toslink cable. My Samsung plasma indeed has a PCM option for digital audio out and the sound is quite good thru the Qute.  Thanks for the advice, all!

Bart, glad you could try it and hear an improvement. Satellite, cable, or TV as a source is not the best, GIGO of course, but it is better than those built-in speakers. And you have the Naim electronics so might as well.

Edouard, does your LCD have fixed RCA out? Did you ever try connecting that to your 552 and see how that sounds? Even analogue was an improvement for me. The digital to the DAC was much better though. 

Arun

Hi Arun,

When I had my Philips cathodique tv, it was connected with a RCA out to my 552/300/Amati  . The sound was truly awesome

Ah okay Edouard, glad to hear that's the case 

I wonder if it's now the Samsung or the UnitiQute??? Did you try analogue into the UnitiQute? Maybe try another optical cable? 

Arun

I have my panasonic 50" plasma connected to my unitiqute running my inwall speakers via optical connection on the Tv sounds pretty decent to be fair, I'd like to add a sub sometime in the future. 

Missed this thread earlier. Similar to Neal, I run an optical out from my Panasonic Plasma into Digital 2 of my Unitiqute (Unitiqute 2 connections are the same). In my case I then run preamp out from the Unitiqute into the AV input of my Nait 5i using the Unitiqute as the volume control. From there its NACA 5 to a pair of nSats. Simple, reliable, and sounds great.