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tramahound · Aug 15, 2003, 02:16 PM

Ok, some bad influences on this board and others like it have given me the idea of putting my cube in my home theater. I have been recommended the M-Audio Sonica to get the audio out of the cube and into my receiver. I don't want to do this for two reasons; 1) It costs money and 2) It doesn't seem to be much different from what the cube came with originally (that little amp thing the pro speakers are connected to). My question is, how IS it different from the amp that came with the cube and how come that little amp doesn't allow me to connect a 1/8th inch to composite cable from the headphone out jack to my Denon AVR-3801 receiver? I've connected it this way before and it either didn't work all the time or it sounded absolutely horrible! Is the Sonica the only way to get the audio out reliably? If I had an open toslink input on my receiver it wouldn't be an issue, but I need to use the analog composite cables now. Could the quality of my 1/8th inch to composite cable be the culprit? What could be making it sound so badly, and standing in the way of my digital hub?!
Thanks for any help you can send my way.

exa · 02:41 PM

The headphone port on the cube is not a line out; it is actually amplified (like 50mW for headphones or so). You are trying to plug a slightly amplified signal into a line level input on your receiver, that is why you are getting bad sound.

The sonica will give you a toslink interface that will be fully compatible with the receiver's toslink interface. This is a way better solution than using analog outputs from the computer in terms of quality.

If you don't have free toslink inputs, you can get a sonica theater ($$$) and use the coax interface, or change your other devices to coax.

tramahound · Aug 15, 2003, 02:42 PM

the sonica also has a line out it says. that would be ideal for an analog connection right? Is there anything cheaper usb-to-line out that i can use? toslink is nice but i can't use it...

exa · Aug 15, 2003, 02:55 PM

Hm yeah it does have an analog line out, but if a line out is all you need you can get something like a Griffin iMic (http://www.griffintechnology.com/pro...mic/index.html); I'm sure there are others out there.

tramahound · Aug 15, 2003, 02:59 PM

dude, you rock! I totally forgot about the imic! I'm hoping over to the menlo park NJ apple store after work and picking up one of them suckas! Thanks!