Chromecast Help

sukotto85 · 29 Aug 2017 at 12:59

Hi all,

After recently purchasing the Cambridge Audio CXA60, and a pair of floor standing speakers, I now want a way to stream content from my phone, without using Bluetooth.

At the moment all of my digital inputs are occupied by other devices. If I connected the chromecast to my TV, have the audio out going into my stereo receiver would the sound quality be good? I'm only going to be using this for streaming music. I would go CCA, but I'd then have to connect this via RCA, which would mean the CCA dac would be used rather than my stereo receiver?

Looking back, I now wish I bought Cambridge Audio's CXN.

james.miller · 29 Aug 2017 at 13:03

Cca has optical out as well, just need the adaptor and an optical cable

jpaul · 29 Aug 2017 at 13:48

not sure if chromecast (non audio) supports streaming all audio codecs over hdmi - flac/aac/webm so you may find the phone will have to decode to pcm,
but could have sent them directly to a cca.
edit - maybe those codecs do work here cant' see flac listed
Obviously tv will need to be on too, to allow pass through to optical out for the cxa60.

CCA were/still? £20 again last weekend, its toslink/optical output (and tvs) are not jitter free, so might not be better than using its analogue output

sukotto85 · 29 Aug 2017 at 20:20

The CXA60 only has two optical ports, one is connected to my PC, the other is connected to my TV out. I hate having to swap things around every time I want to use another device. This is why I wanted to have it plugged into my TV, then have the optical out going into my stereo receiver.

If I had a another optical port on my stereo receiver, I'd then go for the CCA.

james.miller · 29 Aug 2017 at 20:31

It also has coax input - can you swap the optical cable from the pc for a coax and free up an optical input? or buy an optical to coax convertor and use the coax input for the CCA?

sukotto85 · 29 Aug 2017 at 20:44

I missed some vital information, my coax is connected to my CXC. Is the Audio out of my TV really a bad option? I've got my PS4 going though the audio out into my amp.

jpaul · 29 Aug 2017 at 22:05

since it looks like chromecast normal can decode most audio codecs, providing your tv (which will need to be on) can pass the bitstream though to the optical output, the connection you propose would be fine.
You could make an experiment from your PC and compare the sound you get on your cxa60 currently, versus casting from your PC to the chromecast, if you did not already try it.

sukotto85 · 30 Aug 2017 at 22:32

Thanks for the advice.

I'll try both of those options.