USB to digital coaxial or optical converter for sound

Question

Level 1

12 points

USB to digital coaxial or optical converter for sound

I would like to take digital sound out of a Mac Studio, and pass it into an external DAC using either the DAC's digital coaxial input (S/PDIF) or its optical input (Toslink).

So far I have tried Douk Audio U2 converter, but Mac Studio (macOS 14.1.2) does not recognise it on any of the USB ports, even though the manufacturer's product spec claims it should be compatible with Mac OS 10.16 or higher, without any drivers. I'm now reluctant to try another one without understanding first what went wrong with this one. Also, I haven't been able to find many other candidates that are not also DACs themselves.

Two questions:

1) is there a reason why a new audio output at a USB port is not picked up by macOS 14? (That is, apart from it just not being "class compliant".)

2) could somebody recommend a USB to S/PDIF or Toslink converter that would actually be picked up by Mac Studio?

For what it's worth, I do know I'm trying to go against the grain of how these products have been developing recently - Apple encouraging you to use the analog 3.5mm headphone jack instead, and DACs already being built with USB ports. Nevertheless, the solution I'm looking for is specifically for my existing DAC that does not have a USB input.

Mac Studio, macOS 14.1

Posted on Dec 10, 2023 7:10 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

arkki Author

Level 1

12 points

Dec 13, 2023 3:23 AM in response to arkki

Update on the problem I had above with USB to digital sound conversion:

I have now followed the DAC manufacturer's suggestion and bought a CYP USB Digital Audio Converter at https://www.rcblogic.co.uk/product/cyp-usb-digital-audio-converter-192khz24-bit instead, and this one works fine. It was immediately recognised by Mac Studio on a USB-A port, and I could select a format that actually passes the sound from Mac to DAC.

My conclusion is that the Douk Audio U2 converter that I first tried was simply faulty.

In case this helps anyone else, some of the checks that I tried with the first converter were (inspired by reading other discussions on this forum):

check if the converter was recognised as a USB device in System Report, even if it was not recognised as a sound output (A: it wasn't).
check if the converter was recognised as an audio device in Audio MIDI Setup app (A: it wasn't).
tried different ports both USB-A and USB-C (A: made no difference)
checked all these ports could power other devices (A: all were powered)
tried different USB-A and USB-C cables on these ports (A: made no difference)
tried with and without the DAC coaxial connected to the converter (A: made no difference)

Reply

Answer 2

dialabrain

Level 10

136,103 points

Dec 13, 2023 3:42 AM in response to arkki

arkki wrote:

My conclusion is that the Douk Audio U2 converter that I first tried was simply faulty.

Just a comment, when something states "Mac OS 10.6 and later" which it does on their site, that doesn't guarantee it will work on every version of macOS for all time. Most likely it was no longer compatible. Glad you found a solution that worked.

Reply