Audigy 2 ZS Digital Output to Z-5500s

[pickle965]

I was wondering how to use the digital output on the Audigy 2 ZS with the Z-5500s I have coming in tommorow... I'm not familiar with all this audio stuff. I read on the creative site that the Audigy 2 ZS uses a 3.5mm miniplug and AFAIK the Logitech-Z5500 speakers have coaxial and toslink optical inputs. Which input (coax or optical) can I take advantage of with the Audigy 2 ZS? Also, what cable would I use? Thanks in advance.

From creative.com
"The Digital-Out jack on the Sound Blaster Live! 5.1, Sound Blaster Audigy, and Sound Blaster Audigy 2 cards is a 4-pole mini jack that enables the card to deliver multichannel audio via three discrete streams (Front SPDIF, Rear SPDIF, and Center/Subwoofer SPDIF) to compatible speakers such as the Creative Inspire 5700, DTT3500, or MegaWorks 510."

 

[Baked]

Digital out means you'll need optical cable. For your setup of Audigy 2 ZS to Logitech Z-5500, you'll need a mini to toslink optical cable.

 

[pickle965]

Are you positive it's optical?

I'm guessing I would need this cable then?:
http://www.cablestogo.com/prod...Fid=2001&sku=27015

 

[Accord99]

Digital out refers to both digital coaxial or digital optical. The A2 ZS's digital output at the back is compatible with the coaxial input at the speakers, you just need a cable like this:
http://www.radioshack.com/prod...product%5Fid=42%2D2444

 

[newParadigm]

Accord99, that cable will most certainly NOT work.

That cable u supplied only has 2 poles on the mini RCA end. The Jac kn the Audigy 2 ZS has 4 Poles.

If memory serves me, that is a proprietary digital interface that only Creative speakers can use. I could be wrong about this but i def no that the RadioShack Cable won't work.


~new

EDIT: I don't believe the first cable that was suggested will work either. The jack is not Optical, wheras the cable suggested (1st one from CableToGo) is optical at both ends.

 

[Baked]

Originally posted by: pickle965
Are you positive it's optical?

I'm guessing I would need this cable then?:
http://www.cablestogo.com/prod...Fid=2001&sku=27015

Correct. But you don't need something that expensive. Cheaper ones are availabe on ebay.

Originally posted by: Accord99
Digital out refers to both digital coaxial or digital optical. The A2 ZS's digital output at the back is compatible with the coaxial input at the speakers, you just need a cable like this:
http://www.radioshack.com/prod...product%5Fid=42%2D2444

Don't give the OP false info if you don't know the difference between analog cable and digital cable.

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: newParadime
Accord99, that cable will most certainly NOT work.

That cable u supplied only has 2 poles on the mini RCA end. The Jac kn the Audigy 2 ZS has 4 Poles.

If memory serves me, that is a proprietary digital interface that only Creative speakers can use. I could be wrong about this but i def no that the RadioShack Cable won't work.

It works, I've used it for a SB Live and an A2 Value. The additional poles are only needed for connecting to certain multimedia speaker systems that support Creative's triple-SPDIF method of sending 5.1 uncompressed digital audio.

 

[tiap]

Digital out is industry standard as toslink or coax. As usual Creative tries to have their own proprietory format in the 3.5 miniplug. For this you will need to get a cable from this to coax. Or it will probabably supplied with the speakers. On the 3.5 end it has 3 black insulators.
Creative always does stuff like this and that is one reason I stopped using them.
It will sound fantastic
I had a yamaha tss1 speaker decoder setup with a sblive platinum and if I remember correctly it used a 2 pole miniplug to coax to connect digitally. Google for tss1 sblive connections

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: tiap
Digital out is industry standard as toslink or coax. As usual Creative tries to have their own proprietory format in the 3.5 miniplug. For this you will need to get a cable from this to coax. Or it will probabably supplied with the speakers. On the 3.5 end it has 3 black insulators.
Creative always does stuff like this and that is one reason I stopped using them.
It will sound fantastic

It's not proprietary, you just need a simple cable and other speaker manufacturers have made systems that supports it. It's just that the HT industry has not had any standard method for transporting 5.1 channels of uncompressed digital audio until recently.

 

[tiap]

It's not proprietary, you just need a simple cable and other speaker manufacturers have made systems that supports it. It's just that the HT industry has not had any standard method for transporting 5.1 channels of uncompressed digital audio until recently.

Call it what you want; Creative is the only one that uses it.
Everyone else uses toslink or coax

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: tiap

It's not proprietary, you just need a simple cable and other speaker manufacturers have made systems that supports it. It's just that the HT industry has not had any standard method for transporting 5.1 channels of uncompressed digital audio until recently.

Call it what you want; Creative is the only one that uses it.
Everyone else uses toslink or coax

Too bad coax and toslink doesn't support 5.1 uncompressed digital.

 

[Auric]

A coaxial cable is required (it seems I am compelled to mention this weekly, sigh).

Here is an example of an adapter which may be used with any standard RCA video cable (75 ohm coaxial, commonly sporting yellow plugs). Don't get sucked in to spending more for a so-called "digital audio cable", nor use just any old braided wire analog audio cable.

Besides that, the most common mistake is failing to disable the Audigy decoder from AudioHQ, when using an external decoder. Likewise disable any decoder in a DVD player unless perhaps you want to send matrixed stereo PCM to the Logitech for use with headphones. Likewise, music could have DSP effects applied.

As noted in the quotation from Creative, real time multi-channel shan't be available via SPDIF without said speaker kits so the analog connections should be used for best surround gaming while the digital can be used for movies and music (except for DVD-A, of course). The DAC on the Audigy is prolly better so analog quality may be better but hardware decoding is preferred and at least the digital keeps the signal clean 'till it leaves the PC. Oh, and mute all the analog inputs in the mixer while not in use.

Enjoy!

 

[pickle965]

Originally posted by: Auric
A coaxial cable is required (it seems I am compelled to mention this weekly, sigh).

Here is an example of an adapter which may be used with any standard RCA video cable (75 ohm coaxial, commonly sporting yellow plugs). Don't get sucked in to spending more for a so-called "digital audio cable", nor use just any old braided wire analog audio cable.

Besides that, the most common mistake is failing to disable the Audigy decoder from AudioHQ, when using an external decoder. Likewise disable any decoder in a DVD player unless perhaps you want to send matrixed stereo PCM to the Logitech for use with headphones. Likewise, music could have DSP effects applied.

As noted in the quotation from Creative, real time multi-channel shan't be available via SPDIF without said speaker kits so the analog connections should be used for best surround gaming while the digital can be used for movies and music (except for DVD-A, of course). The DAC on the Audigy is prolly better so analog quality may be better but hardware decoding is preferred and at least the digital keeps the signal clean 'till it leaves the PC. Oh, and mute all the analog inputs in the mixer while not in use.

Enjoy!

Thanks man, you definitely seem to know what your talking about for sure. Just to make sure I've got things straight here... if I order this adapter and this cable I will be able to connect the Audigy 2s Digital Output straight to the Z-5500s digital coax input, correct? Will this connection support 5.1 surround?

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: pickle965http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat%5Fid=102&sku=03195[/L] and this cable I will be able to connect the Audigy 2s Digital Output straight to the Z-5500s digital coax input, correct? Will this connection support 5.1 surround?

5.1 from pre-encoded DD/DTS sources only.

 

[pickle965]

Ok, got it. Thanks.

 

[Auric]

That adapter and cable will work but are relatively expensive. The $4.99 cable above that one on this page should do just as well. You may want to check out partsexpress and cablewholesale.

 

[pickle965]

I pay reseller prices at cabletogo, don't worry

 

[tiap]

Originally posted by: Accord99
Digital out refers to both digital coaxial or digital optical. The A2 ZS's digital output at the back is compatible with the coaxial input at the speakers, you just need a cable like this:
http://www.radioshack.com/prod...product%5Fid=42%2D2444

He correct. This cable will work to pass thru spdif to the decoder in your speaker system. Same cable I have used and a lot cheaper and probably local pickup for you. If your only running a few feet no difference.

 

[beatle]

I'd use the 3 analog minijacks. It's the only way to get DVD-Audio.

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: tiap

Originally posted by: Accord99
Digital out refers to both digital coaxial or digital optical. The A2 ZS's digital output at the back is compatible with the coaxial input at the speakers, you just need a cable like this:
http://www.radioshack.com/prod...product%5Fid=42%2D2444

He correct. This cable will work to pass thru spdif to the decoder in your speaker system. Same cable I have used and a lot cheaper and probably local pickup for you. If your only running a few feet no difference.

If you're not concerned with trivial things like engineering specs then why not just go all out and jam a metal coat hangar in there?

 

[gikidaerc]

I got the same set up. the replies kinda got into tangent that's why I kinda got lost. So what do we need to buy again? Where is the best place to get it? So your set-upo works now?

 

[pickle965]

You need a mono 1/8" jack to rca adapter such as this one. You also need an RCA video cable or single digitlal coaxial audio cable, both seem to work.

I am using the adapter I linked to and a fancy pants gold series RCA video cable I purchased from radio shack and everything works great.

 

[50]

I am still curious, I always thought he would use an optical SPDIF cable in this situation with the 3.5mm adapter. I bought an optical cable a week ago and it came with an adaptor that would convert the fiber optic into a 3.5mm minijack which I presumed would be used for an audigy (since it uses a different version of the optical jack). I'll try to find a link for it.

 

[Gremzor]

I have gotten my audigy 2 succesfully hooked up to my sony receiver digitally. Now my only gripe is there is a VERY noticable amount of noise/air with this connection. I am using this cable with this adapter. On the front of the packaging for the cable it says "Mono Audio/Video Cable". They had a cable for 5 dollars more that was labeled for digital audio but I could not see any difference and they had the same exact features listed. Anyone know how to get rid of this noise? I tried muting everything but that didn't work...It's really annoying. : /

Edit: After more searching I think the problem is actually my receiver... : (...It is a sony STR-DE445. It appears that this is a common problem with this unit. I guess I just have to live with it if I want digital output. At least the analog signal is crystal clear, but I thought digital would have the highest audio fidelity. Guess I was wrong. Really disappointing though...

 

[gikidaerc]

ey $50 , i think i know what you saying...

i spent the whole day to troubleshoot this same set-up i got z-550 + audigy 2zs > not to mention custumer service from bothe logitech and creative.

i bought a rca digital coax monster cable + mono to mono shielded adapter> this set-upo will work plus do your software configs.

the optical cable with an 3.5mm adapter won't work. the adapter is only good for an optical 3.5mm mini jack from cd, dvd players. since we all know that optical beam uses light to transfer digital signal. the adapter that comes with that optical cable wont convert electric to light. as far as i know the digital i/o jack from from the sb 2zs comes out as electric signal, not light. i never seen a converter of electric to light beam. and yeah i'm not gonna buy the front panel for an extra optical jack.

so buy the front panel, platinum/ pro if you want to use optical , if you don't want to spend a lot of money i would suggest to get a rca digital coax monster cable($20) plus that plug they have (http://www.radioshack.com/prod...roduct%5Fid=274%2D897)

anybody got any better idea on optical, like to learn new things everyday! PEACE!:roll: