I was thinking about doing a TOSLINK mod to my original xbox. Is it worth it? or is there a cable that provides it?
The official Component cables and the official HD AV pack have a TOSLINK port on them. It's not worth it to mod the console.
Are they still available for a decent price? Does anyone have a tutorial for a TOSLINK mod. I found one but the pics are not very detailed (kinda blurry). I'm good at soldering.
You could look into buying a cheaper component cable and adding a TOSLINK port to that, may be a bit easier
I just looked on eBay and they seem to be hard to find. The only HD AV pack I found came from the UK and was $53. I was lucky and got the official cable version from my cousin when he gave me his Xbox he got from a friend. Mine has a TOSLINK transmitter but I don't think I've tested it out yet. I recommend doing this too. Get a good quality third party one and just take it apart. Then you can solder a TOSLINK transmitter to the correct pins. If you really want to mod the console, you can add a TOSLINK transmitter by soldering to the right multi-out pins. No idea if it requires extra components like the GC TOSLINK mod though. If you do mod the console, skip the component cables and wait for OzOnE's Universal HDMI mod board and install that too. Keeps everything pure digital lol.... until the audio hits the DAC in your sound system and gets converted to analog audio.
I think a coaxial mod is bit easier to do. Just grab a RCA connector, drill a hole in Xbox case and solder 2 wires to av-out pins. It works beautifully!
I don't recommend digital coax as it isn't as good as TOSLINK IMO. Many sound systems have been dropping digital coax too. Also, Coax is ran over a RCA cable. This makes it susceptible to interference whereas TOSLINK uses light sent over a special glass tube.
If coax is convenient then use coax. If you run in interference problems, grab a better cable. I personally prefer toslink just because the red light is "cool". I have hooked up both types and heard zero difference. IMO the world will be moving away from toslink, thanks to HDMI.
High quality RCA cables with multiple layers of shielding can be expensive sometimes. I've used the Coax output on my SCART/HDMI to HDMI converter to get sound out of my laptop and convert the analog audio from SCART cables to digital. I couldn't get surround sound with my laptop using it. Might've been the converter though. HDMI can do what TOSLINK can and will probably replace TOSLINK entirely. I have to use TOSLINK because my receiver is old. It doesn't even have Component or HDMI inputs/outputs. As for the red light, don't shine it in your eyes! You may go blind.
WTF? Coaxial audio is a digital signal, it's either works it doesn't. By your logic audio through an optical cable is better than audio through a HDMI, which is outright wrong. Coaxial isn't better or worse than TOSLINK it's essentially the same thing! Sure, you can make an extremely long cable that doesn't work but this has nothing to do with real life applications. Any reasonable cable length even with no shielding at all will work with no problem.
Woah dude calm down. I know they are the same thing. Read a later post I made in this thread. No need to get upset over this.
Anyone know how to find the av out pins on an xbox or have some pics? i really would like to do this mod.
