Best optical switch for playbar?

monoprice switch does not do conv from DTS to DD

monoprice switch does not do conv from DTS to DD

Nor does the Octava. I wasn't sure if that's what the previous question was in regard to or not.

That being said, many Bluray players (my Samsung included) will convert DTS to DD if you tell it to in the settings. Works like a champ in my setup.

Monoprice! mines almost 2 years old and never a problem!

I've been using this switch for a while and have been very happy with it. It switches 4 inputs to 2 outputs. I needed 4 inputs and thought it was cool that it could send any of the inputs to any of the outputs (even the same input out both outputs).

Search Amazon for "AGPtek Optical Matrix Switch 4x2". Was around $35 when I bought it via Prime. Great price for something that can do this with a little remote and tucks in nice behind the sounds bar.

I was forced to go the optical switch route because I have a LaserDisc player (RF Modulator to turn RF modulated 5.1 to Optical) and I wanted 5.1 sound and of course my Samsung 4K was forcing everything to stereo.

I like this box because it's small and has a remote. I use a logitec Harmony remote and just added it to that for my scenes and everything works great, especially with the small size and being able to hide it behind the sound bar since it has the RF repeater.

So, as others have learned, also make sure you get a BlueRay player that will convert DTS tracks to DD, then you have a nice clean DD only network. I've been extremely happy now that I've got full 5.1 sound on all my devices, really made the world of difference for me.

Port 1: Sumsung 4K TV
Port 2: Apple TV
Port 3: BlueRay Player
Port 4: LD Player (via RF Modulator)
Out Port 1: Sonos
Out Port 2: Free

Verified I get 5.1 from all my sources, unless of course the actual media is not 5.1. Huge difference on the BlueRay's and LD's with nice mastering on the audio, night and day difference for me vs my Samsung TV down mixing it to stereo. Granted, even the stereo sounds great, just not the same from the rears and sound envelope as with the pure 5.1 tracks.

Steve

You can buy a passive optical splitter for about £2 - £3 on eBay and use it "backwards" to combine your optical inputs.
http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/400957345815
It can be used to combine two optical inputs into one. Or you could buy 3 of these to get 4 optical inputs into one.
No extra remote and NO switching
There is a caveat:
Some devices will output a "silent" optical signal when not in use (you will see the red glow at the end of the optical cable) and if two (or more) digital optical signals are being fed into the splitter at the same time then it won't be able to be decoded at the receiver (in this case the Playbar).
I have just bought one to combine my PS4 and Mac mini 5.1 sound outputs to the Playbar. I have discovered that the PS4 does NOT output a "silent" optical signal when in "sleep/standby/power saving mode." And after a lot of reading on the Internet about macmini's continuously outputting a "Silent" optical signal; I have found that this is not 100% true. After you close down the Mac application (Plex, ITunes, BBC iplayer etc) then the Macmini will stop outputting the optical signal !
So for less than £3 per splitter you can combine two (or more) 5.1 sources directly to your sonos 5.1 system without the need for a switching device!
Hope this helps someone, I'd been looking for a solution without having to manually switch optical inputs for ages!
Cheers,
Pete

Hi Pete_17

I have been trying to find a solution for the 5.1 solution for playbar and decided to have a go at the £3 splitter as you suggested. Now which cable do I need to connect to the splitter?

Currently I am connecting the cable that came with the playbar from the Tivo box to playbar and sound is much better than connection to the Samsung TV that converted to PCM.

I want to use the splitter to connect to the Tivo box and Android box (Minix Neo X8-H) to the playbar. Do I need to use Toslink to optical cable or the Toslink to toslink cable?

I suppose it is no longer required to connect the Samsung TV to the playbar?

Thanks in advance for your advise.

Amazon sells an Enko switch that uses a remote to switch between inputs 1 to 3, and in my case I trained my harmony remote to replace the remote that came with it, and all is well. Works very well so far, an elegant solution for switching toslink signals.

I also use a monoprice HDMI switch which splits out toslink so now I use the three inputs on the toslink Enko switch with one coming from the monoprice, one from the TV direct (2016 LG OLED) and one from my Roku 4 which I had to separately set apart from the monoprice HDMI switch to ensure I was able to use HDCP 2.2 for the handshake with the TV and watch 4k output.

Works all fantastic as far as I can tell.

You can buy a passive optical splitter for about £2 - £3 on eBay and use it "backwards" to combine your optical inputs.
http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/400957345815
It can be used to combine two optical inputs into one. Or you could buy 3 of these to get 4 optical inputs into one.
No extra remote and NO switching
There is a caveat:
Some devices will output a "silent" optical signal when not in use (you will see the red glow at the end of the optical cable) and if two (or more) digital optical signals are being fed into the splitter at the same time then it won't be able to be decoded at the receiver (in this case the Playbar).
I have just bought one to combine my PS4 and Mac mini 5.1 sound outputs to the Playbar. I have discovered that the PS4 does NOT output a "silent" optical signal when in "sleep/standby/power saving mode." And after a lot of reading on the Internet about macmini's continuously outputting a "Silent" optical signal; I have found that this is not 100% true. After you close down the Mac application (Plex, ITunes, BBC iplayer etc) then the Macmini will stop outputting the optical signal !
So for less than £3 per splitter you can combine two (or more) 5.1 sources directly to your sonos 5.1 system without the need for a switching device!
Hope this helps someone, I'd been looking for a solution without having to manually switch optical inputs for ages!
Cheers,
Pete

I've just done this as I thought it through logically and for a Toslink Fibre Audio this should work, only as long as everything meets the Caveat in terms of no other passive Audio Signal. The good thing is, there is no Switch either manual or remote required, as the Playbar will do all the work as long as there is only ever one signal input.

Simple, cheap and easy and in someways too easy and hence why some go for the all singing and dancing alternatives that are just not needed in many cases and circumstances.

ATB

Pete_17

Read this with interest. Need to connect a combination of Sky (UK) receiver, and Samsung TV (for apps such as Amazon/Netflix etc) to the Playbar. Will the cheap splitter work if connected to the Sky HD box and TV optical out? If that works ok, this is a no brainer for my simple set up.

Thanks.