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Can I have simultaneous Toslink and USB audio on a Mac Mini?

post #1 of 3
11/30/12 at 7:44am
Thread Starter 
I'm setting up a Mac Mini to run XBMC. The surround system (Meridian) doesn't support HDMI audio.

I'd like to use a Musical Fidelity V-Link for audio but that device doesn't support surround sound. So I'm wondering if it's possible to have the V-Link connected on Input X of the surround processor and Toslink on Input Y and just toggle the inputs on the surround processor when I play music.

I'm really hoping that the audio will run simultaneously on both outputs so that I can avoid switching the audio device in the System Preferences.
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post #2 of 3
11/30/12 at 9:11am
Quote:
I'm really hoping that the audio will run simultaneously on both outputs...

I forget just how recently Apple added this, I suspect it was with Lion, but there's now an option in AudioMIDI to "create a multi-output device." Open AudioMIDI, click on the "+" sign in the lower left hand corner, and select it. I have verified this with HDMI and optical out simultaneously on a 2011 Mac Mini running 10.7.4, but the catch is whichever outputs you choose to combine all have to output at the same sample rate. That means you're probably out of luck with this approach if your ultimate goal is to pass 44.1 kHz over USB solely for music and 48 kHz over optical for movies and everything else--it's one res or the other.
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post #3 of 3
11/30/12 at 1:00pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by chefklc View Post

I forget just how recently Apple added this, I suspect it was with Lion, but there's now an option in AudioMIDI to "create a multi-output device." Open AudioMIDI, click on the "+" sign in the lower left hand corner, and select it. I have verified this with HDMI and optical out simultaneously on a 2011 Mac Mini running 10.7.4, but the catch is whichever outputs you choose to combine all have to output at the same sample rate. That means you're probably out of luck with this approach if your ultimate goal is to pass 44.1 kHz over USB solely for music and 48 kHz over optical for movies and everything else--it's one res or the other.

That is golden information. Thanks!

Mainly the VLINK would be for passing 24/96 and 24/192 audio anyway. If the combined output limits the resolution to a single rate then I'm hooped either way. Bummer.

I wonder if you can write an Automator script to switch the audio output device?
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