Is the optical out worth it for the Game Boy Player?

[BitFaced]

Simply put, if my primary use for the GameCube is for its Game Boy Player, should I still go ahead with modding it for digital audio through optical, or would it not be worth it, and I should instead go with this: viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1703

[bobrocks95]

I'll give you a necro-bump since I was curious about this as well. It might bypass the re-conversion into analog that's described in that thread, which might help with sound quality tremendously.

[novenary]

Lol nope the GBA soc outputs analog audio so you'd better off doing the GBP audio mod.

[bobrocks95]

Lol nope the GBA soc outputs analog audio so you'd better off doing the GBP audio mod.

Well, to quote Mega from that thread:

there is a "translator" IC on the GB player...big chip on the GB player next to the port connector for GC connection
this performs communication between the GC and GB...and i would suspect this is the cause for the issue...
the translator would have to convert the analog audio to digital for the GC to process and then send back out to the AVE.
the AVE only accepts digital input, which it then converts to analog output...

So, I was wrong in that the translator converting from analog to digital is likely the reason for quality loss. But the GBP does output digital audio to the Gamecube, which still means you'd skip the re-conversion to analog at the output stage. Whether that leads to anything useful, I don't know, but I think it's still a valid point.

[novenary]

Well, if you want the best quality, keep in mind that the more you mess with a signal, the more you damage it. So stick with the GBP mod if you want /the/ best audio with it. This doesn't prevent you from modding your Cube with digital audio though.