Customer Reviews

Cables to Go 27027 Toslink Digital Audio Splitter (Black)

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(37)

 

 

TigerDirect's shipping is a little exorbitant, but I can't otherwise complain about a fine product. I bought it hoping to reverse it to put both my CD changer and my Playstation 2 into the same input on my receiver, and it works just fine. I can't have both on at once, but wasn't planning to anyway. I'm sure it works fine splitting one input into two, but that's just not what I was looking for. This product is, however, and I'd happily pass it on to anybody looking for the same solution.

I was very skeptical when buying this spliiter/switch after seeing so many bad reviews. It worked for me after little trial and error and here is what I found. For all those who complained that these splitters/switches do not work, this is what you need to do to get it right. I bought this splitter from eforcity, so I cannot say about those shipped by other sellers.... It works both ways i.e. as a splitter and as a switch.

1. For it to act as a switch, the critical thing is that only one source needs to be ON. Some sources send signal even when on stand by mode. To check whether it sends out signal, just plug one end of the toslink cable into port of the source(cable box, ps3, etc) and check the other end for red light. when on stand by, the light should not be lit.

2. The second most important thing for this splitter/switch to work is the length of the cables used. I used all 1.5 ft cables and they work perfectly. Earlier I had 3 ft cables coming out of the cable box and ps3 to the splitter and then 1.5 ft cable to the home theater. The ps3 did not work but cable box worked (not consistently though) as the signal attenuated too much by the time it reached the home theater receiver. I am not sure if there is a shorter cable than 1.5 ft and it would be great if you do have them. 1.5 ft cables work fine. I got the 1.5 ft cables from RiteAV.

Finally, the basic test to see if it works is to check for the red light after the connections. Connect in the way shown below and check for the light near the * before connecting to the receiver. Make sure only one source is ON at a time. If you see light and it still does not work after plugging into the receiver then it means that the signal attenuated too much and your receiver cannot pick it.

source 1 -->
...................splitter -->* receiver
source 2 -->

--> = 1.5 ft toslink cable
ignore the dots...

Good luck!.

I use it to output the sound from my optical a/v selector (Impact Acoustics A/v Selector) to my surround sound receiver and also to my surround sound headphones simultaneously.

It streams the sound to both outputs without any noticeable loss of quality. Highly Recommended.

I was hoping to use this to direct audio to both my Logitech Z-5500 speaker system and my AstroGaming A40 headset from the output of my XBox 360. Unfortunately it didn't work. No audio was detected by either the headset or the speaker system.

I had a 3 to 1 mechanical optical switch in line that I thought might cause some attenuation and when added to the attenuation of this device caused the failure. I removed the switch and connected this unit directly. Audio was detected, but it was constantly stuttering and occasionally stopping entirely. By carefully moving the cable I could get it to keep the signal but the stuttering continued.

I would not recommend this to anyone for any use without an optical amplifier to place in front of it.

Needing an optical splitter I decided to purchase an inexpensive optical amp: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I94FRM

Placing that amplifier before the splitter allows the signal to be amplified enough so that everything works.

I've raised my review to three stars because it does work.

Being a splitter, this device is intended to split an optical signal output from a device (such as a DVD player or Satellite dish) to feed inputs on two devices such as amplifiers or receivers or a recorder.

I am running out of a satellite receiver into this splitter and on one side is a 3 foot short TOSLINK into the front room receiver, then the other side is going into a 50 foot run into a bedroom receiver.

Both receivers are getting sufficient signal to produce unhindered Dolby D PL IIx sound in both rooms simultaneously.

As some of you know, digital is pretty much working or it is not working, and as such this little splitter both does the job and passes enough signal to drive the 50' run with no problems.

This should not be confused with a switcher, because it outputs to the two sides equally and simultaneously, there is no switch in the unit. I understand from other reviews that it CAN be used as a 'combiner' to take two outputs and feed those into one device's input, but this is not what the device is intended to do, that's why it's not called a mixer. :-)

Oh and be advised that you will need to use a TOSLINK cable out of your source to connect to the splitter; the splitter does not have a male end to plug directly into the source- all connections on this 27027 are female.

The TOSLINK cables snap into the receptacles in the splitter and are held there as you'd like them to be. Cables To Go has a real winner here, for a great price.

I have one optical input on my receiver and two sources - a PS3 and a DVD player. I've run short toslink cables from both devices to the splitter and connected the splitter to my receiver. As long as only one of those two devices is turned on I am able to get a signal lock. There is a fair amount of loss going through the splitter; I was only able to make it work with short (3 ft) cables without any sharp bends.

This is axactly what it says it is a toslink splitter. If you need a combiner don't get this thinking it will 100% work. I though I would give it a try and it failed misserably. My ps3 must not put out a strong optical signal because it would not transmit a working signal through the spliter but my Xbox 360 would. I tried everything even swapping cables and taking the splitter apart and holding the end directly together and it still wouldn't work 100% it would only come on for a slight amount of the time. But the Xbox would work in either socket and with either cable.

Basically this thing takes 2 optic filiments and just sticks them side by side in the single inlet/outlet. This causes some issues with the light not hitting the outlet cable dead on center and looses alot of the signal and will dim the light coming out of the end.
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I knew from the begining that I would not be able to run both devices at the same time and would have no issues with using this but the item would just not work with both devices.

It would most likely work the other way to split one signal to 2 devices but I don't see that happening either. For those that have got this to work congrats your reciever or stereo must be super sensitive to the optical input and will work.

By the way I have a Sony Dream system DAV-FX500. So if you have this system this item will most likely not wok for you. I would get the item that actually worked that I describe later.

I finally dropped the idea and got an toslink to digital coax adapter and it works beautifully. Now I have to configure my remote to just switch the input so that the PS3 will out put from the coax. I get awesome quality from this connection and have had no issues with the new device.Toslink Optical to Coax/Coaxial Digital Audio Converter

Don't buy this toslink spliter if you think it will work 100%. I did and was dissapointed but it cost so little that I didn't consider sending it back and spend all that money on shipping. I just got something that would actually work, so if you have a digital coax input free I would use the toslink to coax adapter instead.

Thanks,
Jeremy

Plugged it in and it didn't work. I can see the light coming out when I plug the cable in but I think the splitter dulls the optical signal too much.

Thing doesn't work for me at all. Tried plugging everything in in different ways but it still doesn't work. Don't waste your time on this.

I read a lot of the reviews, and it seems like this works as a combiner sometimes, but not others, and is very equipment specific. It appears that, as long as it is only receiving 1 signal at a time, it works. Specifically, it seems other people had success connecting a PS3 and Xbox. The problems seemed to come up when people were running a cable box that was never really "off".
What I noticed is that mine has a "dominant" side. I'm running a samsung blue ray player and verizon cable box. When the BR player is off, it sends no signal, but when the cable box is off, it still sends static. So, as long as the BR player is on the "dominant" side, the item blocks the cable box signal when I'm watching a movie, and the product works as desired.