Audigy 2 SPDIF IN

[FishTankX]

Can anyone tell me how to switch SPDIF OUT to IN? It's in the drivers, right?

 

[Jojo7]

Uuuuh. I guess you're talking about the audigy 2 platinum with the live drive (front panel thing) right?

If so, it's clearly labeled:

^
|
Spdif in
Spdif out
|
v

 

[Pariah]

You can't. Only the Santa Cruz has that feature. If you want SPDIF in (coaxial and optical), you need to own a Platinum or Platinum EX/Pro.

 

[FishTankX]

How is that so? It's listed in the manual that it can be switched on the software level..

 

[Pariah]

No, it can't. Whatever you are reading you are either misunderstanding, or it is a misprint.

 

[FishTankX]

...Wha? So there's a misprint in the audigy 2 manual?

 

[Pariah]

What does it say exactly in the manual? I'm too lazy to look it up, and I don't even know where mine is anyway...

 

[FishTankX]

Hmm.. it says '24/96 recording of Line in's and SPDIF in's, as well as 'Software switching of SPDIF In to out (Bypass)'

 

[beatle]

That means that it can pass a spdif "input" from a DVD drive or file on your hard drive through the soundcard without processing it. From this page:

[*]Software switching of SPDIF Input-to-Output (bypass) to minimize cable connection hassle

This means if you want to listen to a movie in 5.1, for example, you can pass the spdif signal through a single coaxial cable running to your digital decoder. You'll still need analog cables for EAX, however. The regular Audigy 2 ZS doesn't provide a spdif input from an external cable.

 

[FishTankX]

Okay, new question.

How easy would it to splice an RCA jack into a normal CD SPDIF cable? It would just involve splicing them then connecting the apropriate wires together, right?

 

[Pariah]

Originally posted by: FishTankX
'Software switching of SPDIF In to out (Bypass)'

You're misunderstanding what that means. SPDIF Input-to-Output (bypass) (the correct term, not what you had) is a feature that turns the soundcard into a transport as opposed to an audio processor. For example if you want to connect a minidisc player and your computer to the SPDIF-in on your receiver, but it only has one SPDIF-in, you can connect the minidisc player to the SPDIF-in on the Audigy and enable input-to-output bypass and the digital signal from the minidisc player will skip the Audigy DSP and travel straight out the SPDIF-out on the Audigy to the receiver unaltered. This saves you the hassle of manually switching cables to your recevier, thus "minimizing cable connection hassle." Again, you still need a SPDIF-in for that feature to be of any worth, and the vanilla Audigy's don't have one, so the feature should not even be available in the control panel.

 

[FishTankX]

Audigy's do have an SPDIF in. How else would you hook up an external CD-ROM digitally to the card?

Right now i'm intrested in learning how to splice RCA and digital audio cables together.

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Originally posted by: FishTankX
'Software switching of SPDIF In to out (Bypass)'

Again, you still need a SPDIF-in for that feature to be of any worth, and the vanilla Audigy's don't have one, so the feature should not even be available in the control panel.

Where do you think the drive bay extensions are connected to? And the Surround Mixer and other controls are chock-full of options that are not necessariliy available.

Audigy S/PDIF-In is just in pin form rather than RCA jack (or Toslink jack with convertor). The on-board CD Digital S/PDIF-In jack is seperate. To make your own input cable is easy enough. Then you just need to find which pins to connect it to.