Optical Audio splitter question

Factual Questions
1

My receiver only has one optical audio input and one coax audio input (i think coax is the right term even though it uses a standard RCA cable).

I have my cable box going to coax and my xbox 360 going to the optical. This has worked fine, but I recently got a media center laptop and an external Soundblaster usb "sound card with optical.

My plan is to use an optical splitter to have my 360 and my media center PC go into the same input on my receiver. I figure as long as only one is on at a time I shouldn’t have any problems.

I the future I also plan on adding a media type device, like the new Apple Movies (or whatever they are calling it) or possibly a Media Center Extender (I know my 360 technically is an extender, but it doesn’t have the My DVDs feature I need). That will be another digital output.

Could I split the optical 3 ways without significant signal loss? I know I should upgrade my receiver, but it sounds fine and I don’t want to spend that kind of cash right now.

So yeah, my question is how much signal quality am I going to lose splitting optical?

Edit: Also, if I were to accidentally run my 360 and PC audio at the same time into one input what would happen? Would it blow my receiver? Would i hear the 2 sources over top of each other?

Thanks,

Jeff

2

You wouldn’t be splitting the source, so you wouldn’t lose quality. You can’t merge the two signals though, and some devices still transmit the audio even when turned off.

What you’re looking for is a Toslink optical switch, something like this.

3

You can get Toslink splitters. They’re cheap - $10 or so. Generally they’re used the other way around - to take one optical out and feed it into two components.

I have no idea what would happen if both components were on. Certainly it wouldn’t harm your receiver - it’s a digital signal. My guess is that you’d hear nothing at all, because the decoder wouldn’t be able to make sense of it all. Maybe you’d get some horrible screeching or something, depending on the electronics.

The ‘correct’ way to do it is to get a switch, and flip from one input to the other.

4

Thanks for the responses. I thought about a switch, but this way I’m saving the step of getting up to actually flip that switch. My laziness is not to be trifled with :smiley:

I should have it setup by the end of the week, I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Jeff