Optical not working

Morning - do I get a prize for the first post in this sub-forum? No? Well, it was worth a punt...

I have just received my Medley Air and have a couple of issues. First, it will not work on the optical connection - I have to use the 3.5mm socket. When I first set up the unit, it did work on optical, but the volume was too low, so I changed to good-old-analogue and it works (the volume is much better - higher). However, the sound quality isn't so good: it cuts out ever so often (just for a split second) and it sounds a bit like an old fashioned speaker playing too loud - although, generally, speech is much clearer, which is what I need. Background music, though, is horrible!

When I try to use optical now, initially it shows 'green' on the display, but when I remove the headset from the charger, it goes to 'flashing red'.

We have an amplifier, with optical connection to Sky Q, and another optical input to the amp from the TV. The pass through feature is from Sky to amp, so I might try from TV to amp, but that is not surround sound (for whatever difference that might make).

Any tips for me here?

Cheers,

Chris

P.S. Sorry - I thought I'd put this in the Medley Air section... my mistake!

I tried the optical pass through from the TV to the amp, which worked okay, but the volume was still too low. So I'm back on the 3.5mm jack, which offers very clear speech generally (hurrah!), but a lot of the ambient sound is poor - especially the background music which clashes dreadfully with speech.

I'm hoping that a higher volume on optical will help, but so far optical volume is just too low whether it's drawn from Sky or the TV (old Panasonic plasma). 

Any more volume available?

Cheers,

Chris

I've tried optical from the TV and from Sky. On our Panasonic TV there is an option in settings/sound for 'volume correction' (from memory). It was set low so I increased it to maximum, which has helped to some degree. Using the optical inputs gives a better, crisper sound and the spoken word is better defined against background sounds, like music or traffic. Optical quality is much better than 3.5mm/RCA analogue. But the volume on optical is significantly lower than on analogue. Alas!

The only way I think I'll be able to manage is to keep swapping: optical for pukka TV shows (news, Match of the Day, Repair Shop, etc.), but analogue for fun stuff (films, drama series, etc.). This isn't so great as it means the sound quality suffers greatly for films - which is where it needs to be at its best. A shame!

Cheers,

Chris