Here's a tip for connecting an Audigy 2 to a digital receiver!

[Jadow]

Hi all, for years, I've connected my SB Live to a dolby digital recevier by connecting the digital mini out to a y adapter cable (mini jack to two rca jacks) then using another Y adapter to convert the two rca jacks to one, so I can plug it into the digital coaxial input on the receiver.

It worked great. However, with the Audigy 2, I try the exact same thing (I just got the card, no live drive) and it wouldn't work! So I figured Creative tried to cripple the bare bones card, to get more ppl to buy the livedrive, and I was really mad!

As a last ditch efford, I bought a mono mini plug adapter (miniplug to a single rca) and ran that using a 75 ohm rca cable to the receiver, and VIOLA! It worked great!

So for the Audigy 2, you can't use stereo rca cables with y adapters, the way most of us probably use the digital out on the Live, you need to go mono all the way from the sound card to the receiver.

BTW, going from a Live to an Audigy 2 did make a noticible difference in mp3 playback quality! Not as big a difference going from WM8 to WM9 though!

 

[MrChad]

I have no idea why splitting a digital output and then reconnecting it would work at all. You're not dealing with analog stereo; it's a digital signal. Using the "mono" connection leaves the output untouched, so it's no surprise that you get better results with that setup.

 

[Pariah]

When using a mini to stereo RCA cable you are only supposed to use one of the stereo RCA connectors by design. With the Live! one connector outputs the front 2 channels, the other (not useable) the 2 rear channels. By adding the stereo to "mono" adapter you were combining 2 different digital stereo signals into one. I'm surprised that didn't do some really odd things with the audio. You had it incorrectly connected with the Live!, so it is no surprise that it didn't work when you tried it on the Audigy 2.

 

[Jadow]

I guess it just never occured to me! When I first got the live with digital out, I just made the connection with some y cables I had laying around, and it worked, so I figured that was the way to do it!