VGA + AV Cable for Xbox 360 & 360 S with Optical Digital Audio Output

Product Overview

This is a heavy-duty VGA lead for the Xbox 360 that also carries stereo audio and a digital optical audio output. It lets you run the console into a computer monitor or a projector rather than a television, which is the tidiest answer if your display has a VGA socket and no HDMI input, or if the HDMI inputs you do have are already full.

What the plugs are, so there are no surprises. There are three connectors at the display end: a 15-pin VGA plug that carries the picture, and two RCA plugs, red and white, that carry the sound – right and left stereo audio. VGA carries video only and cannot carry sound, which is why the audio comes out separately on its own two plugs. The red and white pair are audio: this lead does not carry composite or component video, and there is no yellow video plug on it.

The build is the difference you can see in the photographs. The jacket is thick and heavily insulated rather than the thin flat cable these are usually sold as, and the console connector has a proper moulded strain relief where the cable enters it. Each plug has its own moulded body with a ribbed grip, so it comes out by the body instead of by the wire. The VGA shell and both RCA plugs are gold-plated; the console connector itself is the standard nickel finish.

The optical audio output. There is a square shuttered port on the side of the console connector: a standard TOSLINK optical digital audio output. Plug an optical cable in there and the console’s digital audio can go to a soundbar or an AV receiver while the picture goes to the monitor on the VGA plug. This matters most for the original Xbox 360, which has no optical socket on the console body at all.

Please check which console you have. This lead fits the Xbox 360, the original model, and it also fits the Xbox 360 S, the slimmer glossy version – both have the same wide, flat AV multi-out socket at the back. It is not suitable for the Xbox 360 E, the later squarer model, which dropped that socket for a small 3.5 mm jack.

One honest note about this batch. These are from older stock, and on some of them the white ring on the audio plug has taken on a slight yellow tint. It is a purely cosmetic variation in the moulded plastic – it does not affect the picture, the sound, the fit or the life of the cable, and every cable is brand new and unused. The photographs show it as it is so you know exactly what arrives.