I am looking at the Yamaha A-S301 amp to replace my dead amp I’ve had since 1978. I will only be using it for the TV for now. My current setup has two plugs going from the TV to two plugs in the back of the amp. Diagram from the manual for the Yamaha A-S301 below shows one plug going from the TV to the amp. How am I going to make this work?

You could use right and left channel RCA inputs (analog) for any of those sources (CD, tape, etc). Whatever you're not using or are willing to give up.

Your TV does not have a digital out? According to the diagram, it could be optical or coaxial. That is the way it is supposed to work according to the diagram.

Assuming your tv has RCA audio outputs (L & R), you simply connect them to one of the unused inputs on the amplifier (ex. CD, TUNER, LINE 1, 2, OR 3).

Phono is the only one which is different.

Had to Google RCA plugs and that’s what I think I have. Here is a photo of the back of the TV. I'm really lost when it comes to this kind of stuff. Why does that diagram show only one line going to the TV?

The diagram uses an optical cable, it's a fibre optic cable. Your TV has the input right next to your RCA input that you have pictured.

Also note if you switch to the single optical cable each end has a tiny plastic BB protecting it. You have to remove them before connecting. That goof took me a minute.

You could also connect the tv to any of those RCA cable line in sources you are not using. It’s just a simpler analog connection. The optical would be digital.

I would buy an "Optical" cable and use that for the audio conection to the TV. Simple and leaves the RCA inputs for the other equipment you may want to use.

Link

Run the optical out from the TV port next to the RCA cables to the optical input on the amp. You should get better sound from that connection than the old RCA setup.

Link is to a cable from Amazon, although you can probably find one at Wal-Mart locally.

You may have to go into the setup for audio on the tv and specify Optical output, this will disable the volume control on the TV and the amp will control sound volume.

You don't want the amp and tv speakers playing at the same time, will sound like an echo chamber.

Most TVs now do have that optical audio out. But if yours doesn't, use one of the unused RCA jacks on the amp from the TV. Just don't use the phono jack, which is looking for and designed for the output from a phono cartridge. Output from another source will not sound right.

Optical may offer theoretically better transmission over RCA, but it probably won't matter in practice. The decoder from optical to analog has to be good, and your speakers would have to be good enough to notice the difference, too.

But I don't think I have seen RCA out on a TV in a while. It is all HDMI and optical audio cable.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jhe888,

quote:

Originally posted by wingspar:
Had to Google RCA plugs and that’s what I think I have. Here is a photo of the back of the TV.
I'm really lost when it comes to this kind of stuff.

Why does that diagram show only one line going to the TV?

The one line depicts the Optical cable.
Since your TV has the RCA cables (R+L) just use those, simpler and cheaper.
The optical is just another option and no advantage over the RCA's in your case.
Since your amp is only 2 channel - it won't be processing any digital material aka surround anyway.
Signal processing would normally happen over HDMI cables which are not in play here.
No need to overthink it - just connect with RCA's.

No audio expert here, but aren't those optical connectors called TOSLink? Might be useful to use that term for a search. Do not mistake these for the fiber-optic networking cables in common use these days for long cable runs/protection against EMP, they are not interchangeable.

Use the Optical hookup. Your TV has it, and the new amp has it. Simple, fast.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Run the optical out from the TV port next to the RCA cables to the optical input on the amp.

This ^^^^^

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
The one line depicts the Optical cable.
Since your TV has the RCA cables (R+L) just use those, simpler and cheaper.
The optical is just another option and no advantage over the RCA's in your case.
Since your amp is only 2 channel ...

Correct, but, I'd use optical, anyway, because it's cleaner: One cable, rather than two.

quote:

Originally posted by architect:
No audio expert here, but aren't those optical connectors called TOSLink?

They are: TOSLINK.

Both TOSLINK and coaxial use S/PDIF as the data protocol. The only difference is one's electrical and the other's optical.

The two RCA plugs are analog signal. The toslink (optical) is digital. This is why one cable replaces the original two

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
The one line depicts the Optical cable.
Since your TV has the RCA cables (R+L) just use those, simpler and cheaper.
The optical is just another option and no advantage over the RCA's in your case.
Since your amp is only 2 channel ...

Correct, but, I'd use optical, anyway, because it's cleaner: One cable, rather than two.

Meh, not really a big deal but if you got 'em (it) smoke 'em (it) but I wouldn't go out of my way to acquire and pay more.
.02

Your two plugs (RCA) are the Right (red) and Left (white) channels of your audio output - from the TV set to the amplifier.

As long as you are not using the qmp for other sources, might as well keep you existing cable and plug it to the Red/White inputs for the Tuner. Tv is a type of tuner so its easier to remember thsn Tape or Aux.

0-0

Echoing what others said, simplest is to plug your tv cables into any of the RCA jacks on your amplifier. If for whatever reason you want to go optical, you can get a TOSlink cable for just a few bucks...

Monoprice

I appreciate all the responses. Thank you. I’ve been reading them as they came in via email and ordered the amp this morning and have already received a shipping notice. The place I ordered it from didn’t have much of a selection on optical cables as far as length goes, so the longest I could get was 12 feet. If I went longer, the price tripled. I hope 12 feet is long enough. If not, I will just use the old RCA cables. From the responses here, I doubt I would notice a difference between the RCA and optical cables. I don’t use the amp and speakers much anyway. Almost always when watching a movie. I don’t know if I’ll ever use the amp for anything other than the TV, but I’ve learned to never say never.

There is actually a third option, although at this point we're obviously beating a dead Equus. You could run your RCA cables to an analog-to-optical adaptor (maybe $12?), then from there run an optical cable to your amp. Why you'd want to run such a wonky setup I don't know, but you have another option.


RCA adaptor by kpkina, on Flickr