Im fed up with this BS, im buying an optical cable! Tell me what i need and if it will work please.

[Maximilian]

Ok so ive been trying to figure out why in vista my sound wont stay at 5.1, it always reverts back to stereo, also whenever i set it to 5.1 and try the sound test it will play for a bit and when it reaches the front right speaker i get a "failed to complete test" message, occassionally CThelper will crash too. This is with Z5500's and an Audigy 2 ZS.

So i disabled the audigy 2 ZS and gave my onboard sound a shot, it works a bit better, dosent crash. However i cant get proper 5.1 to work, its screwy, with everything plugged into the correct color theres no rear speakers, with the colors mixed a bit it works but the rear speakers are really weak, sounds like theyre trying to play what the sub should be playing. So wired up right or wrong it dosent work either way.

MAIN QUESTION

Screw this RCA crap, im gonna use an optical cable, it cant fail with just the 1 cable right? Please answer my questions below:

1. What kind of optical cable do i need? The AC97 has two square looking ports.

2. Whats the difference between the two types of optical cable? If needed i can use both as my 5500 supports both and i have an audigy 2 nx external card that supports both.

3. Will an audigy 2 nx give me the same crap in vista that my audigy 2 zs gave me?

4. Will i notice any sound quality differences in going from RCA direct to optical?

5. Anything else i should know? Anyone see any problems that could arise with this?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Are you gaming with this setup? If so, going digital is probably not a good way to go unless your motherboard does DD/DTS encoding.

What does "RCA crap" mean? Are you using digital coaxial (single RCA) now, or the three 3.5mm stereo minijacks?

What do you have the z-5500 control pod set to?

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
Are you gaming with this setup? If so, going digital is probably not a good way to go unless your motherboard does DD/DTS encoding.

What does "RCA crap" mean? Are you using digital coaxial (single RCA) now, or the three 3.5mm stereo minijacks?

What do you have the z-5500 control pod set to?

Yes i game, but also play music and watch movies.

RCA crap means those three little wires, the green, the orange and the black, i thought they were called RCA connectors?

I have it set to 6 ch direct. Think stereo 2x would be a quick fix solution to this lack of 5.1?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I don't know if you've seen this already, but this is my little intro to why digital might not be the best way to go for you if you can manage to get analog working.
http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=1940133&enterthread=y

RCA jacks are larger than the 3.5mm connections you're using.
http://www.national-tech.com/prodimages/2rca-ste.jpg (RCA on top, 3.5mm stereo connection on the bottom)

I don't know what the current state of the vista drivers are for the Audigy cards. I would recommend checking on the Creative forum to see what drivers people are using as the crashes might be a driver related problem that might be a quick fix.

 

[Maximilian]

Ive read your entire guide :thumbsup: good stuff, ill stick with analogue, i just has this idea that digital was better, probably because of the adverts on tv a few years back advertising digital televison replacing analogue television. "See these wavy colored lines? Thats analogue, see these ones and zeros? thats digital and its not only digital its the future! digital brings faster more efficient blah blah etc" It was something along those lines and they would show pictures of colored wavy lines looking slow and old alongside fast moving flying 1's and 0's making you think wow it must be better! So fast!.

Anyways back on topic ive reinstalled the creative drivers after reading other people had problems with CThelper in XP as well as Vista which at first didn't do anything, they're the exact same drivers i had before but for some reason after messing about with things and restarting a few times its working again. I can use the sound test and it works, 5.1 seems to work fine, it dosent revert itself back to stereo only. Yay

Thanks for the help, its lucky you came along i was eying up a £20 optical cable.

 

[Shawn]

I love my optical connection. It's sounds amazing. Got rid of the horrible ground loop hiss.

 

[montypythizzle]

Originally posted by: Soviet
Ive read your entire guide :thumbsup: good stuff, ill stick with analogue, i just has this idea that digital was better, probably because of the adverts on tv a few years back advertising digital televison replacing analogue television. "See these wavy colored lines? Thats analogue, see these ones and zeros? thats digital and its not only digital its the future! digital brings faster more efficient blah blah etc" It was something along those lines and they would show pictures of colored wavy lines looking slow and old alongside fast moving flying 1's and 0's making you think wow it must be better! So fast!.

Anyways back on topic ive reinstalled the creative drivers after reading other people had problems with CThelper in XP as well as Vista which at first didn't do anything, they're the exact same drivers i had before but for some reason after messing about with things and restarting a few times its working again. I can use the sound test and it works, 5.1 seems to work fine, it dosent revert itself back to stereo only. Yay

Thanks for the help, its lucky you came along i was eying up a £20 optical cable.

I have no idea what 20 Euros is but you can get a 2m optical cable for around a pack of cigarettes (have no idea what 5 dollars is in Euros )

 

[Shawn]

UK£ 20 = 40.42800 U.S. dollars

ouch

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Yeah, if you do ever end up getting an optical cable, it should be a fraction of that price for a decent one.

 

[nboy22]

I tried hooking my PC up to an optical connection on my Z5500's but when you play mp3s and such it only plays in 2.1 so I get no real rear output or anything of that sort... I was looking for a work around but the analog connections seem to do pretty well anyways.

 

[Maximilian]

Originally posted by: nboy22
I tried hooking my PC up to an optical connection on my Z5500's but when you play mp3s and such it only plays in 2.1 so I get no real rear output or anything of that sort... I was looking for a work around but the analog connections seem to do pretty well anyways.

Try the stereo x2 effect on the z5500's it duplicates whatever plays through the front speakers through the rear. Also i think music is supposed to be 2.1 anyways, even in a 5.1 setup.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Yeah, a stereo source like MP3s should be played back as 2.1

You can get it to play on more than just 2.1 various ways, but you might be better off just leaving it alone. Most speakers playing is not always better.