Toslink from TV to DAC???

I normally use a Toslink direct from the cable box to the dac. As an experiment I tried the tv Toslink to the dac. No sync problems either way but I prefer direct from cable box to dac. It just seems more elegant that way. Hey, it's tv sound which is mostly mediocre anyway.

I use both a toslink cable from the cable box and one from the TV to my pre-pro. The reason being is I sometimes watch TV from the antenna while recording two programs on the DVR.

No worries, but some sources will sound louder than others will. I run the cable box, blue-ray player and xbox 360 into the TV using HDMI, from the TV to the DAC using a 20 foot glass toslink cable.

No noticeable delay at all.

I run toslink from my new Samsung LED TV into the DAC card in my Accuphase integrated amplifier. Works excellent.

I've tried running both Toslink and coax digital output from my cable box to my DAC, and it was a horrific failure both ways. I tried this with both a CI Audio VDA-2 and a Wadia 781i, and with both DACs, I got this annoying loud fluttering sound that would not go away. Moreover, I tried this with two different cable boxes (both the same model) in two different locations, and had the same results. I guess Comcast doesn't want me to use their digital audio.

It's probably worth a try, but there's a chance that it might not work.

Mistercrash,

The reason you are getting that noise is your cable box is outputting a 5.1 signal (Dolby/DTS) and you are trying to convert it with a 2 channel DAC. The two aren't compatible. The cable box needs to be able to downsample to stereo PCM in order for that set-up to work.

I had the same problem and what I had to do was connect the cable box to my tv using HDMI and then use the toslink output on my TV to a stereo DAC. This worked because my TV only outputs stereo (no multi-channel) through toslink.