I just ran into the same problem with my new Samsung Smart TV. Best Buy sold me an optical cable and a cheap little Insignia brand dac. Hooked it up and no sound. I guessed it was defective.
My search for a solution led me to check the inputs on my Bluesound Vault 2 and sure enough it had an optical input. I connected to the Bluesound and the result was the same. No sound. However the big difference this time was the Bluesound generated an on screen prompt to switch the tv audio to pcm. Voila, we now have tv running through the audio system.
Even better, it uses the same interconnects to the preamp so money saved there. I never heard the Insignia dac, but I surmise the dac in the Vault 2 is a major step up from the Insignia.
Btw the Vault 2 sounds great with my cd’s stored in flac files.
My search for a solution led me to check the inputs on my Bluesound Vault 2 and sure enough it had an optical input. I connected to the Bluesound and the result was the same. No sound. However the big difference this time was the Bluesound generated an on screen prompt to switch the tv audio to pcm. Voila, we now have tv running through the audio system.
Even better, it uses the same interconnects to the preamp so money saved there. I never heard the Insignia dac, but I surmise the dac in the Vault 2 is a major step up from the Insignia.
Btw the Vault 2 sounds great with my cd’s stored in flac files.