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Help with Santa Cruz 5.1

Y

Yosoce

Member
So I did the analog out business with 3 miniplug to rca hookups going between the cruz card and my stereo, which IS 5.1 compliant, dolby-everything, but my rear speakers will not work. Now I know it is the rear speaker port on the sound card because when I switch the front and rear speaker cables between ports on the santa cruz, the rear will play the front stuff just fine--the rear port is just dead. This port is the inner one, right next to the joystick plugin, just like it says to do in the Santa Cruz setup screen. Does anyone have any idea what could be wrong? Is there some software I have overlooked or is the port dead?
 
is there some way to do 5.1 through the digital output or maybe by reprogramming the outputs to go in different slots or am i just SOL?
 
yes. I think brian is probably right and that inner port is dead. I was wondering if here was some sort of workaround using the digital output or something (RMA expired a week ago and I really dont want to buy another sc so soon)
 
You can use the mini-plug digital out to connect to the coax in of your receiver but 5.1 only works when you have a 5.1 signal such as AC3 or DTS. Its basically a stereo signal and the receiver has to do the the processing to make it '5.1' (like Dolby Pro-logic II). Where did you buy the SC? Is it retail or OEM?
 
OEM from newegg
yeah im kinda pissed cuz the whole reason i got it was for 5.1, then i found out i needed a different reciever to do that, and now that i have a good reciever the port is dead.
 
I think you're doing the wrong thing. I assume you have a DD/DTS 5.1 compliant receiver, rather than a plain jane "stereo" as you mentioned. Stereo actually means 2 channels. If so, it should have a digital input in the form of a normal coaxial RCA jack or a TOSLink optical jack. What you need to do then is to enable the digital output on your TBSC VersaJack and connect that with a digital coaxial 75ohm cable to the digital input of your receiver. You shouldn't be using the analog out at all. By doing so you're not doing 5.1 unless your receiver has 5.1 analog input for DVD-A/SACD, which I highly doubt since they're only for newer or higher end equipment.
 
That's what he's trying to do, hook up a connection to the 5.1 analog direct input of his receiver. That way, the SC can control the sound going to each channel (like Sensaura, EAX or A3d spread across 5 speakers plus the sub). The SC can't do this over its digital output; this is mostly useful if you are playing a DVD with AC3(dolby Digital) and DTS inwhich the receiver can decode it. Otherwise, sound from games and music are stereo (unless you have a game/music that is AC3 or DTS 5.1 channel encoded ).
 
Well, if the sounds from the games he plays are in stereo only, then it shouldn't be a problem even with the digital S/PDIF output. I believe the TBSC can output PCM audio through the S/PDIF output to his receiver, just like any other digital connection. Then, he could use his receivers various modes to change that stereo PCM audio to DPL or whatever multi-channel music mode it has. Or, if he prefers, just straight stereo.

However, if he wants to output the 5.1 channel analog audio from his sound card to his receiver, then he's outta luck unless, as I've mentioned, the receiver has a set of 5.1 analog passthrough input jacks, which is rare in older and/or lower end equipment. These input jacks are usually used for DVD-A or SACD players, but they support just about any 5.1 line level input signals.
 
Yes my reciever does have the 6 channel DVD/whatsahoogie on the back. RCA inputs for all 6 channels. But ive given up on that given that the port the SC uses for 5/6 is quite dead. What I was hoping for was some way to reprogram the ports, putting the 5/6 on one of the other two ports which are not dead. Grasping at straws, I know, but I gotta ask.
Im using the digital output/input now. And yes it is outputting PCM which im turning into Prologic II sound. THe whole point of 5.1 for me tho is that when the helicopter goes over me, it goes over me and I can hear it do so--Prologicking stereo is still stereo and wont do this, correct? Most games where itd be useful nowadays are at least 4 speaker capable.
As to the digital output, it said on one of the SC pages it should be able to output more than just stereo through it, but I got the impression that is only if I play a DVD on my computer, that 5.1 capable games will still output stereo. Therefore the 6 input is to me the best choice..
 
OK, sorry Yosoce, I underestimated your receiver 🙂 What model is it anyway?

Anyway, if that's the case, I'd definitely exchange it for a new soundcard if its under warranty. You're right in that DPL2 doesn't do much for games, its more for creating a nice surround soundfield effect when listening to straight stereo music. You won't be hearing ammo rounds whizzing past you nor helicopters flying above you when you're playing games though. The DPL2 algorithm doesn't know a tambourine from a submarine.

The SC's VersaJack can be configured via software to be a multitude of things. All you need to do is to go to your SC control panel, and you can choose it to be Analog Out, Digital Out or Analog In. If you choose your speaker mode to "6 speaker (5.1)" and your rear speaker output is dysfunctional, then maybe, and that's a big maybe, you can set your VersaJack as an Analog Out and hope that it will output the rear channels, but I'm guessing if anything they'll output the front channels instead.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the Versajack can be configured as:

Headphone out
line out (if you set the speaker mode to 5.1, this becomes the center channel/sub out)
Digital out
line in.

You can reassign the headphones to the versajack, the front/rear channel but I don't think you can reassign the rear channels to another jack🙁.
 
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