Noise through DAC’s with TV as the source. What’s going on?

Onebean

Onebean

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My son ran into this issue last week when we hooked his LG tv to his Geshelli Labs J2 DAC. The noise was terrible, and I assumed the DAC had an issue.

Yesterday I connected my Samsung tv to my Denafrips Ares II in preparation for the Super-Bowl today. I get the exact same noise through my system.

The only similarity between our systems is we are both using optical cables from tv to DAC and in both systems, Spotify streamed through the TV stops the noise and both systems sounds great. As soon as we switch to any other app on the tv, the noise comes back.

Neither of us have any other sources connected to the DACs currently.

In both systems the optical cable is an inexpensive Amazon Basics optical cable. Could it be the cable???

On both systems the noise is a higher pitched fluttering sound that sounds awful. Any ideas what could be causing this???
 
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Does your DAC have a problem with certain sample rates? The TV signal is likely bumping up to 16bit/48kHz and Spotify will be 16 bit/44.1kHz or 24 bit/44.1kHz. Since you're using an optical connection you can probably rule out electromagnetic interference, so it kind of sounds like a "digital" issue

Edit: I use optical cables from all of my sources into my DAC, including optical out of my LG TV. I have a Mac Mini, Blu-Ray player, and Apple TV going into the LG TV via HDMI, then optical out from TV to DAC for the audio. The TV acts as a switcher between those 3 sources and 48kHz is the sample rate when going from TV to DAC. I've never heard any noise or degraded quality.
 
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@GChief i did not. I’ll look into how to adjust that. On my Samsung the audio selection is tv speakers or optical.

My DAC light is lit on 48k currently, so I assume it will accept 48k without issue.
 
It's weird that the only thing the two systems have in common is the cable. I guess swapping out the cable would be a good first test. Another good test would be trying a Blu-Ray or DVD player with optical out to see how the DACs handle 48kHz from a different source.
 
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