Digital Audio Output

[tb30570 10+ year member]

why don't head units and amplifiers use digital audio outputs/inputs so I don't have to worry as much about picking up noise from RCA cables?

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[basebalz13 10+ year member]

some do

 

[tb30570 10+ year member]

some do

I haven't seen any, who makes them?

Almost all home audio uses digital, what's taking car audio so long to catch up?

 

[blackdragonx118 10+ year member]

probably because its more expensive to convert from digital back to analog. i wouldnt mind seeing this happen though.

 

[Louisiana_CRX 5,000+ posts]

I have an old school car audio deck with a digital output jack ...for sale...it is brand new ....digital output is something rarely seen in decks of today....

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Almost all home audio uses digital,

Hey there...//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[raverx3m 10+ year member]

i belive that whould be more expensive since it would need a more powerfull processor.

the deck already has a DAC for the preamp after which it goes to either internal amp or to external..

the 2 options for digital are coaxial digital and optical digital.

coaxial digital is similar to RCA cable and will also pick up noise and has other limitations

optical digital cannot be bent past certain angle.

and of course the licensing and other corporate BS

then there is a thing called consumer research that tells companies that this certain idea will not make any money so DONT DO IT...

so in this case after few attempts to show off and "be the first one to introduce" the companies backoff and wait untill it goes mainstream so they can say look here back in the day... look what i can do...

alpine made a 5 channel optical amp

and they still make optical output on their indash monitors

my guess the problem would be is everyone tries to push their own standard

home audio usually gets their sht straight alot quicker than car audio why i dont know especially is they are made by same company...

pioneer makes a cd player with optical outputs and amps to go with it

mercedes makes the optical audio (harmann/something) that are pain in the *** to work around.

but the amp is tiny.

the amp is the size of a harddrive with a big heatsink mounted on it powers 9 speakers + subwoofer. pretty **** good.

 

[raverx3m 10+ year member]

plus its not very fun to work with optical cables

can you imagine how much it would cost you to install a 4 channel amp and to run an optical cable? with all the moving parts and bends in the car.

that would mean stripping the whole interior and laying the cable down tightly secured to make sure it doesnt move or get squiched or pulled... a big major pain...

 

[Louisiana_CRX 5,000+ posts]

plus its not very fun to work with optical cables
can you imagine how much it would cost you to install a 4 channel amp and to run an optical cable? with all the moving parts and bends in the car.

that would mean stripping the whole interior and laying the cable down tightly secured to make sure it doesnt move or get squiched or pulled... a big major pain...

stripping them biitches down is the fun part //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[SSS 18734 5,000+ posts]

My Eclipse 8455 has an optical in. I'd love to be able to use it, but there aren't any mp3 players that have an optical out!

 

[Louisiana_CRX 5,000+ posts]

 

[PaulD 10+ year member]

stripping them biitches down is the fun part //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

and a major part of the install EXPENSE, which is why most people daon't want to do it.

 

[headless 10+ year member]

Eclipse's high end HU's have had optical for a while. I'm not using mine ATM, but I believe the cd7k has both optical inputs and outputs.

 

[Horsemanwill 10+ year member]

clarion drz has digital out. the bitones have digital in

 

[atsaubrey 10+ year member]

But the DRZ uses a proprietary optical out, I am still trying to utilize it with the Bitones. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/mad.gif.c18f003ab0ef8a0d9c27ca78d77a6392.gif