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How Do I Connect my iMac to My Blu-ray Player?

Al Griffin  |  Jan 21, 2016

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Q I own an Integra receiver, Polk Audio speakers, and an Oppo BDP-105D Blu-ray player with a high-end DAC. I recently bought an iMac and am using it to download and store high-res audio files. What’s the best way to connect my iMac to the Oppo player? Both are set up in the same room about 20 feet apart. —Neil Levy

A There are several ways for you to deliver audio from your iMac to your Oppo Blu-ray player, including Wi-Fi, HDMI (using a Thunderbolt-to-HDMI adapter), Ethernet, and USB.

Since you want to send high-res audio to your Oppo and have your iMac and player situated relatively close to each other, I’d say USB is your best connection bet—especially since the 105D has a built-in Asynchronous USB DAC. The only issue I foresee is that the distance between your computer and the player exceeds 5 meters—the limit for USB connections.

An Active USB cable will let you bypass this limitation. Such cables contain electronic components that boost the USB signal by drawing power from your computer’s USB port, allowing it to exceed the 5-meter limit without signal loss. You can find Active USB cables for less than $30 from sites including Amazon and cablestogo.com. And don’t worry that your iMac’s USB port is version 3.0 instead of 2.0—USB 3.0 Standard-A ports (the type included on your iMac) are backward-compatible with the Standard-A connectors on USB 2.0 cables.

COMMENTS
ednaz's picture
Submitted by ednaz on January 21, 2016 - 7:41am

I have the same issue of our music server being too far from the DAC. I tried extension USB cables and active USB cables, with unimpressive results. I compared the sound with putting a small computer right close by, and that just crushed the sound of the USB options from my music server (about 18 feet away.) I tried wifi streaming from the server to the local computer, and it sounded so much better, but struggled a bit with DSD and DXD. I read about fiber optic USB cable, tried it... and that's the current setup. It sounded every bit as good as having a PC three feet from the DAC, has zero issues with ultra-high bit formats. I've not had problems with USB printers on 20 foot cables, but sure did have them with music.

Neil Levy's picture
Submitted by Neil Levy on January 22, 2016 - 2:30pm

I've done more research, and it looks like a fiber optic Toslink cable can run from the iMac to the DAC unit.
The iMac end of the cable has a 3.5mm phono plug into the headphone jack. Audioquest makes some nice cables with these two connections, at various lengths.

jamesleej's picture
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smithanderson7868's picture
Submitted by smithanderson7868 on January 22, 2016 - 3:12am

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ednaz's picture
Submitted by ednaz on January 22, 2016 - 5:21pm

TOSLINK optical, while it's got great distance capabilities, is limited in bandwidth. TOSLINK optical tops out on most devices at 24/96. My goal is to listen at rates as close to the recording rate as possible, and a lot of music the last few years has been captured above 24/96. As miserable as the USB specification is, it's what many DAC producers have latched on to... Was listening to some DXD earlier this evening and every time a vocalist weighed in. my three dogs raced into the family room looking for the person they heard. Dogs don't have dogma on what's a reasonable sample rate. We see this "someone's in the family room!" behavior at 24/96 and above in PCM, and in 2X DSD... but not below. My dogs' senses seem to match mine. Which is why I've worked hard to get the best USB quality possible.

Neil Levy's picture
Submitted by Neil Levy on January 23, 2016 - 11:23am

So it seems like every connection has some limits. I'm wondering if the best solution is another server down near the equipment, for a more direct connection. Or a portable SSD external drive.

ednaz's picture
Submitted by ednaz on January 23, 2016 - 2:08pm

I had a small laptop a foot from the DAC, connected to a NAS drive by Ethernet. Worked OK, but the particular drive had issues with really high bitrate files, which was noted on their "future improvements" page on the manufacturer's web site. Worked even better wireless from our main server, other than high bitrate DSD. I'm sure that locating the server close by would be the best approach, but I use the server for ripping CDs and DVDs, and for feeding my portable devices, and putting it near the equipment wouldn't work well. The optical USB is almost indistinguishable from having the server close by, even at high bitrate DSD. When I get more time, I'm going to see if I can improve on that sound, but meantime, it's good enough that we have issues with our dogs thinking someone's in that room with a number of albums, and they never reacted like that with my old DAC, or when I was trying options other than the optical USB. So we must be in a pretty good zone. It's cheaper than you'd think, or at least cheaper than I expected.

Al Griffin's picture
Submitted by Al Griffin on January 23, 2016 - 4:44pm
What kind of gear are you using for your fibre optic USB setup? I'm intrigued.
ednaz's picture
Submitted by ednaz on January 24, 2016 - 7:00am

Go to Amazon and search for "fiber optic USB." You'll see them made by Corning. (Maybe some others too by now.) Shortest distance is 30 feet, but since fiber doesn't really start to have issues for a couple hundred feet... extra coils don't matter much. There's a small circuit at each end that converts bits to light and light to bits, think of them as USB hubs. Since the fiber by Corning is often used in medical device connections, it's very high quality data conversion. $109 right now on Amazon. There are some much more expensive and elaborate options out there, but I'm not sure it would make much difference. As I said, the sound quality with that 30 foot fiber cable is equal to that with a 1.5 foot high end audiophile USB cable.

Neil Levy's picture
Submitted by Neil Levy on February 5, 2016 - 3:09pm

ok, I bought the fiber optic usb cable from Corning, ready to use it and realized its a male to female.
what's the best way to resolve this? adapter? does it have to be optical, most I see are 10 feet long.

Neil Levy's picture
Submitted by Neil Levy on January 25, 2016 - 2:01pm

Ednaz: Thanks very much for your insight. I am going to go with the fiber optic USB, I see it available on amazon.com. I have also been looking at Bluesound's Vault 2, another unit to buy, but seems like a good value for a media server, easily controlled without a computer. Maybe down the line.
For now, I'm looking forward to getting my new iMac set up this week and starting to download & play music.

ednaz's picture
Submitted by ednaz on February 6, 2016 - 5:19am

i have a 1 foot long high end usb cable that i use for the final connection. you can also buy an adapter that's only an inch or so long.

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