Looking for a Digital Audio Out addon board for Pi 2

Help and Support Raspberry Pi
1

Have any of you tried add-on sound cards for the Pi with Coax or Optical out? My TV won’t pass anything along via it’s digital out so I need to find another way to do so.

Something like this

Or this

would work fine for me if it works with the RPi2. Both of these only mention B+ compatibility.

2

This Wolfson Audio Card ($35 @ Element14) looks like the cheapest one I can find that’s still available. Does OSMC support it?

Unless [IDC]Dragon from raspberrypi.org starts making his TinyTOSLINK boards again. I’m not sure how much he was charging for them, though. They look a lot less complicated. (It’s the 2nd board shown in my original post, and supposedly it works with RPi2.)

3

Here’s what I used to split off the digital audio from the HDMI output:

http://www.monoprice.com/mobile/Product/Details/5557

It works perfectly. I’ve also seen this exact item elsewhere, too, for a variety of prices (Amazon, dx, etc) so shop around. Some places also have a single input version too.

Hope this helps.

4

I can’t find any that are much cheaper that just buying a sound card. I think I’m going to wait a while to see if any more TinyTOSLINK boards get made.

5

Just for future reference in this thread, here is a cheaper single input version:

6

Hifiberry DAC supports RP2. Works fine on one of my pi’s

Martin

7

Any external sound card on a Raspberry Pi (whether USB or GPIO connected) requires special operating system driver support and Kodi support to function properly, and there are some limitations on their use within Kodi.

Some available cards work and some don’t due to lack of up to date drivers from the manufacturers. On the other hand an external HDMI audio splitter like those suggested above is guaranteed to work and be 100% compatible with OSMC and Kodi, so if I was in the market for optical/coax out from my Pi I would probably go the HDMI splitter route.

8

Thanks. I hadn’t considered that.

9

HDMI splitter is the best option. Works without any software support.
Don’t buy the Wolfson - there is no kernel support.
HifiBerry is supported by the kernel and is popular.

10

Hi Katze, i have the same problem.
What have you bought in the end? Thanks

11

I’m not using an audio receiver anymore. I never got around to buying anything.

12

Would a splitter like the J-Tech Digital ® HDMI 1.4 Switch Switcher Box Selector 3 In 1 Out HDMI Audio Extractor Splitter with Optical SPDIF & RCA L/R Audio Out & Remote Control Supports ARC, MHL, Ultra HD, Full 3D, 4kx2k, 1080P (Support Apple TV 4Gen)

13

Is there anything to be aware of when buying splitters? I am considering Adaptere og kabler til HiFi - Stort udvalg af kabler og adaptere online (the cheapeste I could find i Denmark) instead of buying Hifiberry, would I miss somthing?

Manual https://www.hama.com/webresources/article-documents/00083/man/00083205man_cs_de_el_en_es_fi_fr_hu_it_nl_pl_pt_ro_ru_sk_sv_tr.pdf

I just want Toslink as my receiver do not have hdmi inputs, sound quality shouldnt be affected when its digital I presume?