'3.5 mm to optical' cable

[praveeng]

I was wondering if there is a cable which can take music from a mobile/PC having 3.5 mm jack to a digital input in a DAC (optical or coaxial).

i.e. a cable with 3.5 mm male at one end and optical/coaxial terminal on other end.

Any views on this?

 

[soundnovice]

hi,

i am looking for a converter other way around. i.e. optical to 3.5mm converter. i need this to connect optical output of media player to power amp directly.

regards,
pranam

 

[arj]

I was wondering if there is a cable which can take music from a mobile/PC having 3.5 mm jack to a digital input in a DAC (optical or coaxial).

i.e. a cable with 3.5 mm male at one end and optical/coaxial terminal on other end.

Any views on this?

I am not sure of the background, but from what I read, you want to take an Analogue out from a PC and send it to the digital input of a DAC..it definitely will not work.

if you buy a DAC,you need to get a USB dac which can pull the data from the USB port OR put a soundcard in your PC which has a Digitalout.

 

[arj]

hi,

i am looking for a converter other way around. i.e. optical to 3.5mm converter. i need this to connect optical output of media player to power amp directly.

regards,
pranam

Optical (Digital) to 3.5mm(analogue) is a DAC

 

[ashishkesarwani]

It depends on your source whether its capable of sending signal in both Analogue as well as digital format. Something like an Apple Airport Express which has this Jack which takes in Mini Toshlink as well as an Analogue 3.5 Pin.
There are adapters avaliable on ebay.in where in you could fix a Mini Toshlink adapter to a Normal Toshlink Cable.

 

[praveeng]

I am not sure of the background, but from what I read, you want to take an Analogue out from a PC and send it to the digital input of a DAC..it definitely will not work.

if you buy a DAC,you need to get a USB dac which can pull the data from the USB port OR put a soundcard in your PC which has a Digitalout.

I already have musical fidelity V-DAC, which I use to play music from my PC via USB AB cable.

Background is like this- few friends came over my place and were pleased with all the set-up I have (see signature). They wanted to try their own songs from their i phones and blackberry. Now, I already have a 3.5 mm to RCA cable which can be connected to my amplifier, and songs from mobiles can be played. But still I was thinking if I could include the DAC in chain, the music would improve.

Hence the question. If I could take the music from mobile phones to the DAC, sound quality might improve to at least some extent.

Now, from all replies here, I have come to know that 3.5 mm is already analog. Definitely not a good idea to feed it into DAC as it might confuse the DAC

May be I can put it simply "Any way to improve sound quality from mobile phones?"

 

[arj]

Only thing i can think of is to move the song from the mobile to the PC..but if they are 128KBps rips, depends on what you are expecting with a DAC in the chain

 

[praveeng]

It depends on your source whether its capable of sending signal in both Analogue as well as digital format. Something like an Apple Airport Express which has this Jack which takes in Mini Toshlink as well as an Analogue 3.5 Pin.
There are adapters avaliable on ebay.in where in you could fix a Mini Toshlink adapter to a Normal Toshlink Cable.

I did some research and came across exactly what you have mentioned. Some PC have both analog and digital formats as output (apple imac and few Dell models). But, listening to music from PC is already here for me through the MF VDAC. I wanted to improve music specifically from mobile phones. Any thoughts?? MF VDAC has three inputs- USB, optical and coaxial.

 

[baijuxavior]

I did some research and came across exactly what you have mentioned. Some PC have both analog and digital formats as output (apple imac and few Dell models). But, listening to music from PC is already here for me through the MF VDAC. I wanted to improve music specifically from mobile phones. Any thoughts?? MF VDAC has three inputs- USB, optical and coaxial.

Since output from mobile phone is already analog, you wont get increased quality by converting it into digital and then to analog. You may try headphone amps like fiio and check whether it improves SQ.

 

[Audiodoc]

The only 3.5 mm to toslink optical cable that is available is something like this:

Amazon.com: HOSA 3.5MM-TO-TOSLINK FIBER-OPTIC CABLE, 10 ft. TOSLINK to mini-Toslink: Electronics


This is used for devices like mini CD players which have mini optical out connectirs similar to headphone outs. Only difference they are digital.

I have one such cable.

The 3.5 mm side has a transparent tip for transmission of the optical signal.

 

[santhosh]

Firstly, output of an iPhone or iPod is analog. DAC accepts digital input and converts into Analog.

Now, for what you are looking...
I have seen only Apple devices like iMac, airport express have such a feature and I am confident the 3.5mm female connector used in these devices is specially designed to output analog or digital depending on the connector used.

So, there is no such cable AFAIK. If there is some device, it will be more than just a cable. It should be able to convert Analog to Digital accurately and IMO this will be very expensive if such a thing exists.

Simpler will be for you to tell your friends to get their CDs or alternatively build a huge collection of FLAC so you can play whatever they ask for

EDIT: Another method is to play songs on their iPhone via your computer by synchronizing with iTunes. This can be time consuming though. This will not work for Blackberry.