are the spdif connectors on motherboards "generic"?

[drewski]

the Epox 8rda+ has an s/pdif connector on the board that is 2x3 pins w/ one middle pin missing. appears to be the same on Asus motherboards.

it didn't come with a connector & its $18 from Epox w/ optical in/out. this one from Asus is $15 and included both optical & coax in/out.

anyone know if the motherboard pin-outs have the same "meanings"?

 

[drewski]

found the Asus manual online and looks like maybe some rewiring of the cable will make things work.

for the 2-row x 3-pin mobo header

asus pin assignments:
gnd no-pin gnd
digi-in +5v digi-out

epox pin assignments:
digi-in no-pin vcc (+5v?)
gnd no-charge digi-out

i'm no EE, but i'm assuming once the right signals get to the card everything should be peachy for both the optical & regular jacks

 

[Slowlearner]

I have a 8rda+ and am trying to figure how this s/pdif connector is used. While the connections to the board conector are simple enough, what exactly is this connector used for? Do I need special speakers, or do high end speakers come with optical connections? The AL 2100 speakers that I have do not have any optical inputs, as far as I can see.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

 

[drewski]

Originally posted by: Slowlearner
I have a 8rda+ and am trying to figure how this s/pdif connector is used. While the connections to the board conector are simple enough, what exactly is this connector used for? Do I need special speakers, or do high end speakers come with optical connections? The AL 2100 speakers that I have do not have any optical inputs, as far as I can see.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

it is for sending (for external playback/mixing/recording) and receiving (for internal playback/mixing/recording) a pure digital signal without converting it first to analog. see here for a basic definition.

i may be off a bit, as i'm just starting to research some new stereo equipment, but the s/pdif signal will have to go to something with a DAC (digital to analog converter) such as a high-end receiver prior to going to speakers. maybe some self amplified speaker systems have this functionality too?

the coax (RCA jack) s/pdif gives more options, so that's why i was interested in the Asus braket as opposed to the Epox one. it gives some additional flexibility at a slightly lower cost!

 

[ScrapSilicon]

^

 

[techfuzz]

Originally posted by: Slowlearner
I have a 8rda+ and am trying to figure how this s/pdif connector is used. While the connections to the board conector are simple enough, what exactly is this connector used for? Do I need special speakers, or do high end speakers come with optical connections? The AL 2100 speakers that I have do not have any optical inputs, as far as I can see.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Optical outputs and S/PDIF outputs are two different types of digital output, but both output the same data just in different forms. Optical obviously uses light to transmit data, while the S/PDIF connection is purely electrical. The data that is transmitted consists of 6 or more discrete channels, usually Left, Right, Rear Left, Rear Right, Center, and LFE (Low Frequency, bass). Some other streams consist of a 7th or even more channels.

AFAIK, no speakers have plugs that directly take the input from S/PDIF or optical. You will need a decoder to process and separate apart the S/PDIF or optical signals into their discrete channels and then send the output to the speakers. This is the reason why people have Home Theater Receivers or Dolby Digital Decoder enabled devices in their homes.

The other option is Stereo output from computers/soundcards which contains just 2 channels, Left and Right. 99% of computer speakers employ some kind of circuitry to accept this input, process the channels and then output the remaining channels to the other speaker and/or subwoofer.

techfuzz