Best Recent Purchases You've Made

[Sunspot144]

Mine: Electric bug zapper racket. Arrived yesterday!

Over 20 years of pent up subconscious frustration towards mosquitos.

I thought a bug racket would be awkward to use and all around just another 5/10 gadget but they work great and the bugs will literally explode as electricity passes thru them.

From 8:30pm to 9:00pm the bugs here will carry you into the woods. With the racket I ran out of mosquitos . Great $13 investment.

[phaz0rz]

1 to 3 TOSlink (audio fiber) splitter for about $10 + TOSLink to Bluetooth transmitter for another ~$10.

With the splitter I split the output of my TV. 1 output goes to the stereo receiver upstairs in my office, 1 goes to a receiver downstairs in the garage, and the 3rd goes to the bluetooth transmitter (which supports two connected devices at once) so I can hook up a soundbar or bluetooth headphones if I ever need to.

And it's fiber so it's all lossless. Evidently I can split the signal 100x without any signal degradation.

[Sunspot144]

Originally Posted by phaz0rz

1 to 3 TOSlink (audio fiber) splitter for about $10 + TOSLink to Bluetooth transmitter for another ~$10.

With the splitter I split the output of my TV. 1 output goes to the stereo receiver upstairs in my office, 1 goes to a receiver downstairs in the garage, and the 3rd goes to the bluetooth transmitter (which supports two connected devices at once) so I can hook up a soundbar or bluetooth headphones if I ever need to.

And it's fiber so it's all lossless. Evidently I can split the signal 100x without any signal degradation.

Niice full home audio for the news and such ? I tried getting bluetooth set up and the walls are too thick Had to go with spotify + chromecast which $15/mo for ad free music is steep!

[phaz0rz]

Originally Posted by Sunspot144

Niice full home audio for the news and such ? I tried getting bluetooth set up and the walls are too thick Had to go with spotify + chromecast which $15/mo for ad free music is steep!

FWIW, when I was shopping for the BT transmitter I saw a few extra strength transmitters with a max range of 50 Meters. Might be worth looking at if it's something you really wanna do.

[sax4]

As someone who travels a lot I try to own as little as possible, my laptop blew up a few weeks ago and I invested in a new laptop which made me a lot happier. I also bought a GoPro recently to start making some travel vids. Apart from that just happy to buy a pair of shoes or jeans that are comfortable

The things you own end up owning you

[Sunspot144]

Originally Posted by phaz0rz

FWIW, when I was shopping for the BT transmitter I saw a few extra strength transmitters with a max range of 50 Meters. Might be worth looking at if it's something you really wanna do.

That's a lotta movies. I do the same rewatch movies. Think I've seen the whole matrix trilogy like 8 times now, never gets old

Wish I'd known about fiber cable for audio 150ft is crazy.. does it need a power supply at either end?

[Sunspot144]

Originally Posted by sax4

As someone who travels a lot I try to own as little as possible, my laptop blew up a few weeks ago and I invested in a new laptop which made me a lot happier. I also bought a GoPro recently to start making some travel vids. Apart from that just happy to buy a pair of shoes or jeans that are comfortable

The things you own end up owning you

Idk man this racket is owning these mosquitos

Visiting deserted towns would be fun. Old mining towns. Deserted islands. Anywhere w/o gov and authorities

[phaz0rz]

Originally Posted by Sunspot144

Wish I'd known about fiber cable for audio 150ft is crazy.. does it need a power supply at either end?

Nah. I used one of the 50M TOSlink cables to hook up the receiver downstairs (it cost pennies on the dollar on eBay compared to Walmart, btw). Fiber runs are stupid long compared to copper. It just goes from port to port. The cable itself is a couple millimeters thick so I was paranoid about breaking it when I was installing.

The 3 way splitter hooks up to a 5V 1A power supply but I'm not even sure why since it's just a quartz crystal in there splitting the signal. It works fine plugged in or unplugged.

[Sunspot144]

Originally Posted by phaz0rz

Nah. I used one of the 50M TOSlink cables to hook up the receiver downstairs (it cost pennies on the dollar on eBay compared to Walmart, btw). Fiber runs are stupid long compared to copper. It just goes from port to port. The cable itself is a couple millimeters thick so I was paranoid about breaking it when I was installing.

The 3 way splitter hooks up to a 5V 1A power supply but I'm not even sure why since it's just a quartz crystal in there splitting the signal. It works fine plugged in or unplugged.

Hmm extension cords lose power further they run. AWG / guage come in ie 8 awg wire thicker than 16 awg wire / can run power further. I guess depending on the setup if a speaker was farther than the cable rating it would need a power supply to add additional power if the speaker needs it. And/or since it's a splitter I'm guessing it's to add additional power (off hand) if you had some solo speakers cranking on it (no AC power cords) ie 1 TOSlink cable now powering 3.

[phaz0rz]

lol you're confusing me man.

My TV output is what I split - not anything on copper. It's fiber from the TV to the (fiber) spliter. Then it's fiber from the splitter to both receivers. The only copper runs are from the receivers to the speakers.

All of the fiber products are advertised as "lossless" since there isn't supposed to be any degradation of the light signal. Either the light signal reaches the other end or it doesn't. It's not supposed to be like copper where you have more attenuation the longer your run is.

I had a 1-to-2 fiber splitter before this one and it didn't require a power supply. The 1-to-3 splitter does use a power supply. I guess to amplify the light signal it's sending out. I'm curious how it works but I don't want to break it so I'll leave it in one piece for now.

[Sunspot144]

I got you. AFAIK any digital signal needs current (voltage) to travel, then you can use thicker or thinner cables to carry "more signal". Works like a wave I think, the bigger the wave the further it will travel before losing "current" and washing out. The light thing is meant to be electricity or electrons.

You could use any aluminum, copper, steel to transmit signal, but for cost effectiveness and application different metals are better suited for indoor/outdoor applications.

Somewhere in fine print it will say lossless then (up to X # of feet). Like Verizon's "Unlimited Data Plan" - (up to X # of GB) With digital audio signals and fiber cable the max distance must be stupid long like you said. Digital 1080p max signal on HDMI is 25' at 60fps, 4k signal is only 15'. Same signal on ethernet cat6 cable it jumps to 300'.

But yea, throw a splitter in there and I guess essentially each output is getting 1/3 of the voltage from the input and a power adapter is needed to pick up the slack.

I would imagine the receivers should be able to "pull" the signal in however weak and amplify it. The power adapter on the splitter is redundant Audio is not something I've messed with much. Could be wrong here.


Edit: Yea seeing numbers like 50km up to 300km for fiber max distance. Plus whatever power source. It's lossless unless you have a 7.1 speaker setup more than 160,000ft away lolol.