dolby digital sound output and nForce2?

[REMF]

hello all,
i know nothing about sound tech, and never wanted to until i started looking at the new nForce2 boards.

do creative labs et al 5.1 packaged speakers connect to the three output jacks from the mother board?
i.e.
jack 1 = front speakers
jack 2 = rear speakers
jack 3 = centre & sub

or do all the speakers connect through via an sp/dif socket?

cheers

REMF

 

[BlueWeasel]

Welcome to AT!! (if you haven't received a welcome yet)

Bump for you since this is slipping to the bottom and I'd like to know as well. I am thinking of upgrading and it appears the Nforce2 boards is the direction I am heading...

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: BlueWeasel
Welcome to AT!! (if you haven't received a welcome yet)

Bump for you since this is slipping to the bottom and I'd like to know as well. I am thinking of upgrading and it appears the Nforce2 boards is the direction I am heading...

IIRC it depends on which 5.1 speakers you get. The higher end speakers like the Z-560's and Z-680's (and the 5.1 Klipsch) have onboard decoders, so I'm pretty sure they use the sp/dif out (looks this way from my Audigy 2 tech sheet). Lower end 5.1 speakers make use of the 3 minis (or possibly 6 RCA inputs) , which essentially carry stereo signals which are then distributed to the 5.1 speakers. Only difference is whether your APU or speakers are doing the DD decoding.

I've found that sp/dif out external decoding is best for movies. I think 5.1 analog inputs are better for everything else as they allow the APU to upmix analog signals into emulated 5.1 DD (EX is the newest iteration). I get the best of both worlds using a coax from my sp/dif on my Audigy 2 to my DTS receiver for movies, and I use 3 1/8'' mini to 2 RCA Y adapters to the 5.1 input for everything else (huge difference for EAX and CD upmixing). If you use the sp/dif out for analog signals like games and cds, you leave it up to your speaker to upmix the signal to 5.1, which IMO doesn't sound as good.

Chiz

 

[clicknext]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: BlueWeasel
IIRC it depends on which 5.1 speakers you get. The higher end speakers like the Z-560's and Z-680's (and the 5.1 Klipsch) have onboard decoders, so I'm pretty sure they use the sp/dif out (looks this way from my Audigy 2 tech sheet).

Chiz

Just wanted to point out that the Z-560 doesn't have an onboard decoder, I think.

 

[Accord99]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: BlueWeasel
I've found that sp/dif out external decoding is best for movies. I think 5.1 analog inputs are better for everything else as they allow the APU to upmix analog signals into emulated 5.1 DD (EX is the newest iteration).

By using the analog connections for DirectSound3D games, you are getting the multichannel master audio,ie the best possible audio. There is no upmixing involved, and with the Audigy 2, you are getting true fully discrete 5.0 or 6.0 game audio. Using the DD encoder with the NForce can only worsen the audio quality of games as it must compress 5 DirectSound3D channels into a digital stream with a maximum bitrate of 448Kilobits/s, using a cheap real-time encoder.

Also, regarding the original poster's question, with a Creative 5.1+ soundcard, and a Creative 5.1 speaker package, you can use a special SPDIF cable to carry 6 uncompressed channels digitally.