Audio setup help

[briareos_kerensky]

Three questions for your audio gurus:

I currently have an old Cambridge Soundworks/Creative 5.1 setup with AC3/DPL decoder.
When I changed PC I was kinda surprised to find that my sound card didn't come with a coaxial out, only optical. The optical in on the decoder was already in use by all consoles that could (through a powered A/V splitter).
Now every time I need to physically unplug cables to listen to either consoles or PC.

What I was searching, if they even exist, are:
* an unpowered optical switch, even just two inputs would be fine.
* or a optical-to-coax adapter that won't degrade or -gasp- turn an AC3 signal to a normal stereo.

Or I can even afford to change the whole setup, maybe switching to a more modern AC3/DPLII/DTS decoder. The Logitech Z-5500 digital looks good but its decoder has just one optical input, does anyone knows an other good 5.1 kit or a good speakers/decoder combination? Nothing too big (speakers will have to sit on my desk) or expensive, but it needs at least two optical ins, a coax in and a line(stereo) in.

[sj33]

I've been using one of these (in combination with the aforementioned Z-5500) for 4 years and it works a charm.

http://www.tvcables.co.uk/cgi-bin/tvcables/SW001.html

[briareos_kerensky]

How does the Z-5500 sound?

[sj33]

I'm happy with it, though I'm not quite as audiophile as some. They aren't exaggerating when they say the subwoofer is huge, it's absolutely massive ans weighs a ton - it even has it's own little handles on the packaging to lift it out of the box. The price has actually increased since I bought it in 2005, so there are probably better options by now.

Since it's being targetted towards the PC market, it has 5.1 analogue inputs, so I can play HD audio on my PC and it works fine, in 24-bit 92KHz too.

[NekoFever]

If you can find a Logitech Z-5400, which was the model below the 5400s but has now been discontinued for some reason, that has two opticals as well as a coaxial and the same stereo inputs.

The analogue input thing is an awesome feature, though. If you buy a Blu-ray player with onboard decoding of HD audio and analogue outputs you can get lossless audio through it, which is what I did until I upgraded everything.