Optical Mini Jack to regular RCA

Martynt74 · 4 Apr 2013 at 16:14

I used to have an airport express and used one of the above cables. I sold that though and with it the cable.

I've just bought another and i can't for the life of me remember what cable i used. Does the 3.5mm Optical cable work just the same as a regular 3.5mm cable? So something like this would work?

http://www.audiovisualonline.co.uk/product/3613/qed-profile-jack-to-phono-cable

lucid · 4 Apr 2013 at 19:11

Not quite.

Optical can be on the regular toslink plug or on a version of 3.5mm jack that has opitical fibre down the centre.

The same socket can also be wired up as a conventional headphone jack. It's a space saving trick on portables. A headphone jack uses electrical connections, so it isn't compatible with the optical signal. It's just that the same shaped socket is used for both types of connector.

This is an optical jack to standard optical connector

This is an adaptor to convert a standard optical to make it compatible with a dual format jack socket

Martynt74 · 5 Apr 2013 at 09:11

Thanks Lucid, do you recall seeing any cables that take the 3.5mm optical jack into a 2x RCA connectors?

I'm struggling to find the right term and i'm positive i once had one. Its only for an Airport Express for my wife to stream music from her phone. Want to keep it simple rather than connecting it to the DAC as that would involve extra hassle switching inputs etc.

lucid · 5 Apr 2013 at 09:35

No plain cable will do that. Optical is light. Stereo phone is an electrical signal. They're not the same thing as far as equipment connections are concerned. Light vs Electric = Different.

You would need a DAC to convert optical (0's & 1's in a light signal) in to a stereo phono (analogue waves carried by a stream of electrons)

The only way that a stereo jack to phono cable would work in that socket is if the signal inside the socket is electrical. i.e. you could hear it if you plugged in headphones. Check the menu settings.

Martynt74 · 5 Apr 2013 at 09:42

Ah perhaps thats what i had with my old one then where it was just a bog standard 3.5mm to RCA cable and the AE uses either Optical or Analogue through the 3.5mm socket.

Cheers

lucid · 5 Apr 2013 at 10:03

Yes. Look, it shows you that on the Apple support site

It's a dual format socket. Jack for optical (digital). Jack for electrial (analogue). One jack - two different signals.

Martynt74 · 5 Apr 2013 at 10:06

Excellent, least now i don't have to start searching for something that doesn't exist