5.1 Amplifiers with Optical inputs

**enigma9o7** · 07-16-2007, 01:27 PM

Just found this thread, and figured I'd post some personal experience. I have the Phoenix Gold R5.1 Mobile Theatre. I bought it new a couple years ago and had been using it with an ebay deck (Pyle PLDINTV7) up until about a month ago. I had all five channels hooked up to it, but ran my subs off another amp (there's a rca level sub output on the PG amp).

DVD,CD,MP3 all work great thru the optical. The sound is obviously crystal clear. You have to control the volume thru the amps remote (of course, no way to control volume thru fiber) but I hooked that up to my steering wheel controls thru a pac swix to make it easy.

However, for tv & radio, the sound didn't go thru the fiber. I assume that is cuz the deck would have to encode it or something, so I had to hook up RCAs as well. Then when I wanted to listen to tv/radio, I had to switch inputs on the amp (which I put to another button on my steering wheel controls for ease of use). I could listen to cd/dvd/mp3 thru that too, but the sound quality was nowhere near as good, so I'd always switch to fiber for discs.

One neat feature is on screen display. You control all the amp settings thru menus on an external screen... in fact if you didn't have a screen it'd be hard if not impossible to set up.

The funny thing is I didn't know this wasn't a common thing by now, I figured most amps would have digital output these days. The reason I found this forum was cuz I was looking for a new deck to replace the pyle, trying to find one with optical output, and finding it hard (but not impossible) to find one with the features I want... like hd radio/tv so I won't have to use rca's anymore...

**Cris** · 09-01-2007, 06:47 PM

Any other amps...?

**RedGTiVR6** · 09-01-2007, 07:15 PM

No - do you have one in mind?

**ByReaL** · 09-13-2007, 08:02 AM

Are there any new products ?

mainly i have a car pc with optical audio output, and want to connect it to an amplifier via the optical link

is any product on teh market tha tis able to do that ? (that do not require a HU, and that can be bought, because moast of the products mentioned here either require a HU, either i could not find them in any on line store)

anyoane has any info in english about Zenec amplifier? http://acr-nuernberg.de/shop/product...C_ZE-5.1D.html

**ajscomp372** · 09-13-2007, 04:09 PM

I recommend the Performance Teknique ICBM-5.1. It has an optical input, and is also able to decode dolby digital 5.1. It does not require a head unit, is controlled by an IR remote, and can be purchased online. Just Google it and you'll find it.

**ByReaL** · 09-14-2007, 03:06 AM

Originally Posted by ajscomp372

I recommend the Performance Teknique ICBM-5.1. It has an optical input, and is also able to decode dolby digital 5.1. It does not require a head unit, is controlled by an IR remote, and can be purchased online. Just Google it and you'll find it.

http://www.performance-teknique.com/

looked on their website and i could not find it

**RedGTiVR6** · 09-16-2007, 10:22 AM

That's because it hasn't been made in quite some time. That's why he recomended using Google...so you could possibly find someone selling some leftovers.

**ByReaL** · 09-19-2007, 05:49 AM

so is there anything else that i could use to have an optical output from my laptop to a "something" and from there to 4 speakers ?

I'm not after SQ, or SPL i just want to hear some music from my cappc, (and no dash unit is accepted coz i do not have anymore room in the dash because of the 8" TFT)

PS: that performance tecknique looks grate but i could not find one (in a shop that have them ready to ship, most of them list it but do not have it anymore)

**RedGTiVR6** · 09-19-2007, 07:44 AM

nope

what you're wanting is the same thing that hundreds of people have been wanting for the past few years. hopefull, some day a manufacturer out there will see the need for such a product, but currently, there's nothing out there.