Using digital input in a multiway system

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Hi!

This might be also a problem on the source, but I want to know first what the minidsp actually needs.

I want to build active speakers in a home cinema system using the minidsp as digital crossover like many others. Unlike most, I'd like to feed them via toslink, but I don't know what kind of signal they need to work. I want to use a HTPC as source, which I will equip with an optical output. This output should contain 5 (later maybe 7) channels of audio. I will equip it with 5 or 7 outputs containing the same signal, just use more sockets (1 for each speaker) Now my actual question:

Is the minidsp capable of decoding a multichannel toslink signal? If yes, of what kind has the signal to be? I guess I can configure the output in my HTPC to something different than Dolby or DTS which needs licensed software to be decoded. I can't send it then via LPCM Stereo as this does not contain enough channels for my setup. So if there is some sort of multichannel PCM, can the minidsp decode it?



Greetings
Mark
 
Toslink will not work for more than two channels of pcm output. The minidsp devices can only use pcm output. To get multichannel out of a computer you can use usb or hdmi. Minidsp has a nanoAVR that will work for hdmi outputs. If you have a stereo or mono input the nanoDigi will work, but it needs coax inputs.
 
So if toslink doesn't work for more than 2 channels, I need either 3 or 4 toslink signals where I can feed the minidsps in the active speakers with or I need a different approach to this,like a USB audio input on every speaker. Can I generate somehow 4 different spdif signals?
If not, is there a timing problem with 7 different USB audio interfaces?
 
I therefore need a way to transmit 7 different digital audio channels independently from each other from a HTPC to 7 speakers each with its own minidsp 2X4HD. How is it possible to get these signals out of the computer then? In an 8 channel Dac, basically the same thing happens, just that I want to omit the d/a stage at this point to allow further processing inside the speakers.
 
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