I stumbled on this thread, after the SPDIF connection from my X96 air (S905X3 4GB/64GB) started to have more and more problems playing to my receiver.
Initially plugging the toslink cable in/out started the playback, but this started to take more and more attempt. At the moment it almost stopped working. Sometimes I can get it to work again after numerous tries.
I blamed my 20 year old receiver. Decided to replace the poor thing, still same problem 
.
So I now assume I also have to solder a resistor to the board. 1.3K is hard to find, so I’m going with the advice from @joffa to use 2 x 2.7K in parallel.
Thanks to the picture of @jd17 I should be able to locate the right pins on the board.
Will post an update after my soldering attempt 
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This fixed the S/PDIF playback for my X96 air as well! I used 2 2.7K resistors in parallel.
I have not touched a soldering iron in 20 years. Still my attempt went reasonably well
The measured resistance is 1.34 KΩ
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Hello guys,
thank you for your advice! I have used one 1K resistor and one 330 Ohm resistor in series (what I found in my stock) and Toslink works like a magic on my brand new X96 Max Plus. See my soldering below. I have a question, can somebody tell me WHY this is necessary. I can assume that this is so kind of voltage divider but I wonder why is not implemented in the original HW. Do the Chinese amplifiers have different specs?
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Works a treat! Thx
Put a 1.3k resistor as photo’s above
Now have the optical working.
Cheap fix.
Thank you.
Your fix/finding works fine also on dv8545 stb made by sdmc.
Used 1.3kohm/0,25W resistor.
I have a question, can somebody tell me WHY this is necessary. I can assume that this is so kind of voltage divider but I wonder why is not implemented in the original HW. Do the Chinese amplifiers have different specs?
I don’t know. SPDIF works fine during first 6 months, then it suddenly stops.
My guess is that all chinese manufacturers use some reference design diagrams which are faulty. Because it affects also skyworth and sdmc boxes - don’t know about SEI Robotics ones, didn’t have one so far.
Thank you everyone in this thread.
I’ve had my X96 Air for about 18 months, I never used the SPDIF. But today I tried to connect my X96 Air to my new AV receiver using optical SPDIF TOSLINK, and it didn’t work!
I googled the problem, found this thread, read the instructions, and made the fix, all within 15 minutes of encountering the problem. Like others have done, I used 2x 2.7kohm resistors instead of the 1.3kohm, because they are what I had in my parts drawer.
The optical output now works great, if anyone else encounters this problem on the X96 Air or X96 Max, I recommend this solution.
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Thanks for the tip. In my case, the resistance of the resistor turned out to be 960 Ohm. TV box: X96 max is the same as the author of the topic. 1.3 kOhm - wheezing and loss of signal. I checked the signal with an oscilloscope. Sorry for my English. Thank you.
I had this same problem yesterday with my A95 F3 Air (the original Air, not the Air II).
I already performed this fix on my X96 Air last year with success. I tried exactly the same fix on the A95 (with two x 2.7k resistors in parallel) and it worked! The A95 F3 is internally very similar in layout and architecture to the X96 Air, so not surprising.
So anyone coming from google searching for a fix for the A95 F3 Air Optical SPDIF out not working, this fix not only works for the X96 Max and X96 Air, but works for the A95 F3 too, and likely some other models too.
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