Digital Audio Thread

[MazerRackham]

Hey guys, this looks like the right thread to post my question in. Here 'tis:

I want to output music (not 5.1 audio from games or movies) from my PC to my Yamaha receiver. I am using onboard audio right now (not so good). The receiver has coax and optical digital inputs. I'd like to use either of these inputs for this setup.

Can someone recommend the best sound card (not necessarily the cheapest either) that will make it easy to output digital audio from my PC to my receiver? I am not sure if I should be looking for a card with toslink actually on the card or not, or whatever else I should be looking for.

Thanks! I have no idea what to get.

 

[MazerRackham]

bump? ^2

 

[MazerRackham]

bump+++

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Chaintech AV-710 should work just fine.

 

[MazerRackham]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Chaintech AV-710 should work just fine.

Hey Yoyo, thanks for the suggestion. I just installed my new AV-710, and it's perfect! It does what I wanted and that's all I can ask.

Thanks again.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: MazerRackham

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Chaintech AV-710 should work just fine.

Hey Yoyo, thanks for the suggestion. I just installed my new AV-710, and it's perfect! It does what I wanted and that's all I can ask.

Thanks again.

:thumbsup:

 

[alcoholbob]

Just don't use Vista if you want bit-perfect playback - all my stuff is locked at 48KHz now ;(

Apparently sound cards need WASAPI support for some sort of KMixer workaround. Otherwise, bit-perfect output may be impossible to achieve in Vista.

 

[Ghouler]

bumping this old thread for it is a good one and I found excellent resource for all Sound Blaster owners out there...

http://europe.creative.com/knowledgebase/kb_audio.asp

 

[Patrick Wolf]

1 Year Later...

Why no sticky!? I found this thread VERY helpful.

But I have a question about this statement:
"With creative's monopoly on EAX higher than 2.0, if you do get a card that encodes multichannel digital streams, you will not get all the EAX effects that the latest Creative cards are capable of."

Is this suggesting that anything higher than EAX 2.0 (ex. EAX 5.0) can't be encoded into a multichannel digital stream? Thus, the only way to take full advantage of EAX 5.0 you'd have to use an analog connection?

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: Patrick Wolf
1 Year Later...

Why no sticky!? I found this thread VERY helpful.

But I have a question about this statement:
"With creative's monopoly on EAX higher than 2.0, if you do get a card that encodes multichannel digital streams, you will not get all the EAX effects that the latest Creative cards are capable of."

Is this suggesting that anything higher than EAX 2.0 (ex. EAX 5.0) can't be encoded into a multichannel digital stream? Thus, the only way to take full advantage of EAX 5.0 you'd have to use an analog connection?

This is a bit outdated info wise. Creative has bowed to market pressures and has DDL and DTS capability on their sound cards now. Before, only third party cards had this feature and, at the time, could only use EAX 2.0 max. Auzentech was the first to be allowed to create a card with the X-fi chip and EAX 5.0 with DDL capability. Creative then followed suit.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: Patrick Wolf
1 Year Later...

Why no sticky!? I found this thread VERY helpful.

But I have a question about this statement:
"With creative's monopoly on EAX higher than 2.0, if you do get a card that encodes multichannel digital streams, you will not get all the EAX effects that the latest Creative cards are capable of."

Is this suggesting that anything higher than EAX 2.0 (ex. EAX 5.0) can't be encoded into a multichannel digital stream? Thus, the only way to take full advantage of EAX 5.0 you'd have to use an analog connection?

This is a bit outdated info wise. Creative has bowed to market pressures and has DDL and DTS capability on their sound cards now. Before, only third party cards had this feature and, at the time, could only use EAX 2.0 max. Auzentech was the first to be allowed to create a card with the X-fi chip and EAX 5.0 with DDL capability. Creative then followed suit.

Ohhh, now I get it. Thanks again, PurdueRy! However, would an analog connection still be the "safer" choice for EAX than using DDL or DTS Connect as they are compression techniques?

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: Patrick Wolf

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: Patrick Wolf
1 Year Later...

Why no sticky!? I found this thread VERY helpful.

But I have a question about this statement:
"With creative's monopoly on EAX higher than 2.0, if you do get a card that encodes multichannel digital streams, you will not get all the EAX effects that the latest Creative cards are capable of."

Is this suggesting that anything higher than EAX 2.0 (ex. EAX 5.0) can't be encoded into a multichannel digital stream? Thus, the only way to take full advantage of EAX 5.0 you'd have to use an analog connection?

This is a bit outdated info wise. Creative has bowed to market pressures and has DDL and DTS capability on their sound cards now. Before, only third party cards had this feature and, at the time, could only use EAX 2.0 max. Auzentech was the first to be allowed to create a card with the X-fi chip and EAX 5.0 with DDL capability. Creative then followed suit.

Ohhh, now I get it. Thanks again, PurdueRy! However, would an analog connection still be the "safer" choice for EAX than using DDL or DTS Connect as they are compression techniques?

Safer in terms of possibly losing audio quality...yes. Analog audio will not recompress the audio and therefore will not lose any of the original information to the waveform.

I did have my computer hooked up to my receiver via analog at one point with a Creative card. I just found it to be more a pain than I preferred. Most receivers don't do bass management over a 6 ch analog connection and therefore this has to be done in drivers. Not to mention the pain of having to buy splitters to go from the computer to the receiver. It is really a wiring mess. This is why my normal recommendation is to use analog connections with a computer speaker setup and use DDL or DTS connect with a receiver. It's just much easier and practical.

Keep in mind also that you won't want to leave DDL or DTS connect on all the time probably. These, at least on my X-Plosion card turn any source into 5.1. Sounds good but some of us prefer for a stereo source to stay 2.0(ok...well 2.1 with bass management). Why they chose to apply a PLII effect to the DDL and DTS connect options I have no idea. I wish they would encode it to 5.1 but if nothing were playing in the rear channels to have them stay silent.

So what I do is I only turn on DDL or DTS connect when playing a game that has surround sound support. When this is available I find there is no odd PLII type effect applied and everything sounds good.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: Patrick Wolf

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: Patrick Wolf
1 Year Later...

Why no sticky!? I found this thread VERY helpful.

But I have a question about this statement:
"With creative's monopoly on EAX higher than 2.0, if you do get a card that encodes multichannel digital streams, you will not get all the EAX effects that the latest Creative cards are capable of."

Is this suggesting that anything higher than EAX 2.0 (ex. EAX 5.0) can't be encoded into a multichannel digital stream? Thus, the only way to take full advantage of EAX 5.0 you'd have to use an analog connection?

This is a bit outdated info wise. Creative has bowed to market pressures and has DDL and DTS capability on their sound cards now. Before, only third party cards had this feature and, at the time, could only use EAX 2.0 max. Auzentech was the first to be allowed to create a card with the X-fi chip and EAX 5.0 with DDL capability. Creative then followed suit.

Ohhh, now I get it. Thanks again, PurdueRy! However, would an analog connection still be the "safer" choice for EAX than using DDL or DTS Connect as they are compression techniques?

Safer in terms of possibly losing audio quality...yes. Analog audio will not recompress the audio and therefore will not lose any of the original information to the waveform.

I did have my computer hooked up to my receiver via analog at one point with a Creative card. I just found it to be more a pain than I preferred. Most receivers don't do bass management over a 6 ch analog connection and therefore this has to be done in drivers. Not to mention the pain of having to buy splitters to go from the computer to the receiver. It is really a wiring mess. This is why my normal recommendation is to use analog connections with a computer speaker setup and use DDL or DTS connect with a receiver. It's just much easier and practical.

Keep in mind also that you won't want to leave DDL or DTS connect on all the time probably. These, at least on my X-Plosion card turn any source into 5.1. Sounds good but some of us prefer for a stereo source to stay 2.0(ok...well 2.1 with bass management). Why they chose to apply a PLII effect to the DDL and DTS connect options I have no idea. I wish they would encode it to 5.1 but if nothing were playing in the rear channels to have them stay silent.

So what I do is I only turn on DDL or DTS connect when playing a game that has surround sound support. When this is available I find there is no odd PLII type effect applied and everything sounds good.

Wow, thanks again! You've been a big help Purdue. I prefer music in 2.1 too. I read that I can use a 3.5mm to rca adapter on the flexjack of my XtremeMusic, then use a digital coax cable to connect to my reciever, and purchase creative's DTS Connect/DDL package. I'll have to just experiment with analog and digital to see what's what.

 

[WraithETC]

Originally posted by: Patrick Wolf

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: Patrick Wolf

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: Patrick Wolf
1 Year Later...

Why no sticky!? I found this thread VERY helpful.

But I have a question about this statement:
"With creative's monopoly on EAX higher than 2.0, if you do get a card that encodes multichannel digital streams, you will not get all the EAX effects that the latest Creative cards are capable of."

Is this suggesting that anything higher than EAX 2.0 (ex. EAX 5.0) can't be encoded into a multichannel digital stream? Thus, the only way to take full advantage of EAX 5.0 you'd have to use an analog connection?

This is a bit outdated info wise. Creative has bowed to market pressures and has DDL and DTS capability on their sound cards now. Before, only third party cards had this feature and, at the time, could only use EAX 2.0 max. Auzentech was the first to be allowed to create a card with the X-fi chip and EAX 5.0 with DDL capability. Creative then followed suit.

Ohhh, now I get it. Thanks again, PurdueRy! However, would an analog connection still be the "safer" choice for EAX than using DDL or DTS Connect as they are compression techniques?

Safer in terms of possibly losing audio quality...yes. Analog audio will not recompress the audio and therefore will not lose any of the original information to the waveform.

I did have my computer hooked up to my receiver via analog at one point with a Creative card. I just found it to be more a pain than I preferred. Most receivers don't do bass management over a 6 ch analog connection and therefore this has to be done in drivers. Not to mention the pain of having to buy splitters to go from the computer to the receiver. It is really a wiring mess. This is why my normal recommendation is to use analog connections with a computer speaker setup and use DDL or DTS connect with a receiver. It's just much easier and practical.

Keep in mind also that you won't want to leave DDL or DTS connect on all the time probably. These, at least on my X-Plosion card turn any source into 5.1. Sounds good but some of us prefer for a stereo source to stay 2.0(ok...well 2.1 with bass management). Why they chose to apply a PLII effect to the DDL and DTS connect options I have no idea. I wish they would encode it to 5.1 but if nothing were playing in the rear channels to have them stay silent.

So what I do is I only turn on DDL or DTS connect when playing a game that has surround sound support. When this is available I find there is no odd PLII type effect applied and everything sounds good.

Wow, thanks again! You've been a big help Purdue. I prefer music in 2.1 too. I read that I can use a 3.5mm to rca adapter on the flexjack of my XtremeMusic, then use a digital coax cable to connect to my reciever, and purchase creative's DTS Connect/DDL package. I'll have to just experiment with analog and digital to see what's what.

I use the exact setup your proposing and it works good. The audio cuts sometimes but this could be for many reasons unrelated. Unlike some here my Stereo music does not get expanded when I play it through DDL or DTS connect.

The Creative driver panel for DDL and DTS connect have options regarding Stereo upmix.