Name a good audio break-out panel

[JasonCoder]

Alrighty,

After searching around I seem to be having trouble finding a 5.25" panel or even breakout box that will provide the audio jacks I need. Namely S/PDIF optical, coax & RCA jacks if possible. What I have is an nForce2 board (EPOX 8rda3+) that has 6.1 and supports S/PDIF I/O but that support comes in the form of a 3 pin motherboard header. No actual jack.

What I'm trying to do is a hand rolled MCE box. Right now my receiver might just do rca or maybe even spdif in but it might not. Definitely will when I upgrade so I'd like to have as many audio jack options as possible on the panel.

I've looked at several panels but they all seem to want to route cables out the back or around the case and into your jacks. Well that does me no good. And I don't want to buy another sound card because I'm just sending an encoded signal to the receiever... it will decode it just fine... no need for the card to do that... a new card would be money wasted.

So please, recommend a solution if you know of one. Thanks.

 

[Zepper]

Have you checked http://www.frontx.com ?

.bh.

 

[JasonCoder]

Wow, that looks dead on. Thanks a bunch Zepper. :beer:

 

[JasonCoder]

Doh!!!!

No S/PDIF ports on that mofo. Thanks anyways though.

 

[Zepper]

Send them an email - if they don't have those types by now (web site might not be up to date) , it wouldn't be hard to mod a couple of the filler blanks to hold the other types you want.

.bh.

 

[JasonCoder]

Yeah well I sent them an email a couple of days ago and I haven't heard squat back. I did find this http://www.mycableshop.com/sku/SPDIFPLATE.htm and I might go that route for the time being. If you have a cheap SBLive around you can try this http://www.audiencedp.com/sbdb3.htm .

I do have an SBLive but I was planning on using it for the games and sending the motherboard's output to the receiver. Ah well, at least I have options.

 

[Zepper]

Looks like you could mount that jack on the front-x panel but the cable doesn't look long enough to reach the front of the case. Pobably wouldn't be too hard to extend.

.bh.

 

[JasonCoder]

reseller ratings stink for that merchant. At this point I am ready to just wire things up myself if I knew a good spot for the components. I tried RadioShack but everytime I go in there it's like I've got questions, they've got blank stares.

 

[Zepper]

Yup, unless your questions are about cell phone service or other high-ticket items, they are still out to lunch - they wouldn't know an spdif fron a serial port...

.bh.