I've seen a number of people adding an optical out for some decoders....
And i swear i saw one that added an optical, and digital coax (but i cant seem to find the mods again where someone added a digital coax)
anyone have a guide or link to a video for doing this?

Also Specifically:
Does anyone happen to have pictures for adding a optical out for a marantz av550 looking for the pin outs and where to solder the cables.

The most basic mod is to simply tap pin 65 on the Pioneer PD4606 IC and connect that up to an optical transmitter (some have done it directly like that or used an S/PDIF converter board).

The only problem w/ this mod is that it only taps the AC3-RF input for conversion to a bitstream. If you want more capability like using the other bitream S/PDIF inputs so you can turn your Marantz into a digital switcher as well, you may or may not be able to do that.

I am working on experimenting w/ a mod that might be able to do the digital switcher capability but haven't had time to test it out yet. Maybe I might get it going soon since I have more time off but hard to say.

Happen to have a link to the spdif mod using the board and how people have done that?

Also curious as what you mean by digital switcher? and what functionality would come with that?

Here is an example where the author just interfaced it directly from the IC that does "input switching" of the signal.....

https://laserdiscservice.blogspot.com/2 ... essor.html





Your Marantz (as well as any other processor) is not just a processor but a pre-amplifier and an input switching device. When it comes to adding a digital output to these devices, most of the modders I have seen have only been able to provide that output to just the AC3-RF input (the output doesn't work w/ the Coaxial or Optical Digital Input). Hence, the mod is strictly just a way to turn the processor into a simple input and output RF Demodulator.

However, wouldn't it be great to have access to those Coaxial and Optical Inputs at the Digital Output as well? If that could work, it then opens up the processor to be your digital input switching component along w/ being an AC3-RF Demodulator. Hence, one can run both the Optical and AC3-RF out of their LD player to this device and be able to switch between PCM/DTS and Dolby Digital formats w/ the press of a button as the signal travels through to your modern day AV Receiver.

For your Marantz, I would suspect that it uses the same switching IC as the DP-870 which is a Sanyo, LC8904Q. This IC doesn't appear to have a digital output interface that works like the one in the Pioneer, SP-99D. Or maybe it does work if we approach it differently???

More on that when my experiment is complete .