digital audio mods

[torsius]

I just ran into this awesome console site today, and all the video mods are going to help out something awesome! (I have an NES2 in DIRE need of help)

Since most of the mods posted on this site are dedicated to the increase in quality of the output of consoles, I figured adding digital audio output to some systems would be a reasonable topic.

I don't know much about the internals of most consoles, but I know that the audio is generated digitally in some way in most (if not all) of the systems and is then sent to some kind of DAC chip on its way to output.

The information I lack is what voltage/frequency standard is used by digital audio connections (eg. digital coax), and exactly what kind of digital format the audio is sent around the console before being converted to analog.

I know, the quality of the output probably wouldn't be terribly different, but if the signal is digital, it should stay that way as long as possible before being sent to the speakers, right?

Probably the best place to start would be the gamecube, since it offers a digital a/v out, and offers prologic II encoding in audio.

Maybe noone is interested, maybe so, I just thought I'd bring it up

[omnedon]

I know JMKurtz of Neobitz fame can do a coax digital audio mod to a Neo AES or MVS system. Apprently it's not that much of an improvement really, but more of an ability to use the modern digital cables a person may be using with their higher end amplifiers.

I'm very curious if one make their own convereter, or if some off the shelf converter is used.

It is a fascinating idea.

[dum dum]

adding digital audio out would only be useful on consoles that used external DAC's - a lot of them integrated them into the synth chips so they only give analog. if you have a console that kept its DAC external then digital out would free you from having annoying noise like 50/60Hz video hum, but your audio reciever might be fussy about non-standard sample rates (32/44.1/48KHz). you can search the web for info on a spdif mod for the snes for ideas

[atom]

You can do it to the snes, but you need to do adjustments to slap it to your stereo. Do a google for the mods your looking for, they are out there.