I have owned a PS Audio Sprout100 for several years to run a secondary audio system. I have it connected to a Sonos port as part of a Sonos system that enables me to stream wirelessly throughout the lower level of our house. However, I have never been able to take advantage of the Sprout’s supposedly superior DAC because it does not provide a coax input (unlike it’s predecessor). I’m at the point where I am inclined to buy a Cambridge Audio DACmagic100 to take advantage of Qobuz, but am still struck dumb that PS Audio did not include a coax in on the Sprout100 while still touting its superior DAC. While I’ve read of inexpensive coax to toslink converters, that really doesn’t work because toslink does not allow the same signal quality as coax. I am surprised that PS Audio has not come up with a fix for what, to me, was obviously a poorly thought decision to remove the coax input since the Sprout100 is supposed to be a hifi component. Has anyone come up with a workaround that they might suggest?
This was a very similar comment we received from a number of people when we had the COAX instead of optical on the original Sprout. For what it’s worth, we decided to go with optical on the Sprout100 because so many people were trying to hook up their Sprouts to their TV setups. Though the optical is bandwidth limited compared to COAX, I think if you were to get one of the converters, you’d still be pleased using the DAC within the Sprout100. It’s a really nice sounding DAC and amp combo!
Thanks for response, but I still think PSAudio’s design is lame since the toslink signal is not as desirable for the best sound (and PS Audio is a high fidelity sound design company). It would be helpful if you could provide a recommendation for a good converter. Thank you.
I do agree with you, optical is easily my least favorite digital connection. But with it being one of the most widely used connections and the Sprout100 trying to be swiss army knife product, we made the change.
I apologize as I’ve never used one personally. Maybe someone else here has some experience they can share.
I’m running an electronics shop Digitech Audio converter from a cheapish Rotel CD player coax out to Sprout 100 optical in. The improvement over the analague outs was a revelation. Given that the converter is cheap there is no harm in trying.
Welcome, @iain !
Welcome iain! Thanks for the info!
Welcome @iain
Congratulations! Such “revelation” moments are special to most, if not all of us 