Need a sound card recommendation to be used with a high-end home theater system

[No6]

I want to find an on-card solution that has a digital coaxial output... not that dang S/PDIF connector that does NOT give you true AC3 sound.

The Computer (currently): AMD 2400+, ABIT KV7, WD 200MB HD, Soundblaster Live! 5.1, DVD, CD-RW blah, blah, blah

The A/V System: B&K AV2300 pre-amp, blah, blah, blah.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

 

[RanDum72]

I want to find an on-card solution that has a digital coaxial output... not that dang S/PDIF connector that does NOT give you true AC3 sound.

What do you mean by S/PDIF connector not giving 'true' AC3 sound? Either digital connection (coax or optical) can pass an AC3 digital stream so its up to the external decoder (your receiver) to turn them into 'true' AC3 sound.

If you play games and music, the Audigy 2 ZS is the best right now. If you listen solely to music, there might be slightly better options out there (for more money).

 

[helloguy]

if u don play games, get revo 7.1 or the prodigy,else zs 7.1

 

[Nebor]

Um, any kind of digital connection passes AC-3... That's the whole point of the digital connection.

Go for an Audigy 2.

 

[Warder45]

Anything by M-audio is supposed to be pretty good.

 

[InlineFive]

The nForce Soundstorm is supposed to have very good Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding for home theaters.

-Por

 

[Nebor]

Honestly, as long as you're going to be using the digital out, and not the analog outs, or decoding abilities, there's no need at all for a high end sound card. Pick up on the maddog 5.1s at Compusa for $30. They include coaxial digital out, and it's of the same quality as any other digital out. This is confirmed over at 3dss.

 

[NokiaDude]

Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. Amazing clarity and one of the best sound cards to date. Not even the Santa Cruz can compare. And you get on awesome 5.25 brealout box which has the optical out.

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: NokiaDude
Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. Amazing clarity and one of the best sound cards to date. Not even the Santa Cruz can compare. And you get on awesome 5.25 brealout box which has the optical out.

But... he said he needs coaxial out, not optical out. And I see no reason for him to spend that much money when he needs none of those features.

 

[MasterHoss]

Originally posted by: Nebor

Originally posted by: NokiaDude
Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. Amazing clarity and one of the best sound cards to date. Not even the Santa Cruz can compare. And you get on awesome 5.25 brealout box which has the optical out.

But... he said he needs coaxial out, not optical out. And I see no reason for him to spend that much money when he needs none of those features.

Agreed.

I'm sure arguments can be made supporting why the user should go for anything in the Audigy 2 ZS family of sound cards; however, the "added benefits" that the Audigy 2 ZS would provide would be very very small for what the user wants to sound card to do.

I also agree with one of the earlier posts... if you want a pure DD bitstream from the computer to the receiver, the best bet is to use an nForce mobo with Soundstorm.

 

[NokiaDude]

The Audigy 2 ZS Platinum DOES hae coax connections. Check the website. www.creative.com

 

[MasterHoss]

I think Nebor's point is to save the $$ and just get the cheapest sound card out there that has a digital coax output on it. It sounds like No6 doesn't care about much other than having a digital coax connection. Therefore, why spend the extra money on an Audigy 2 ZS much less an Audigy 2 ZS Platinum?

 

[Nebor]

Originally posted by: NokiaDude
The Audigy 2 ZS Platinum DOES hae coax connections. Check the website. www.creative.com

As does pretty much every motherboard's onboard audio, and even the cheapest of soundcards.

It's like this guy is saying he needs a snack, but he wants some meat. I'm saying, you just want a snack, get some beef jerky dude, it's cheap. And you're saying, have a steak, it has tons of flavor! Understand?

 

[TaylorMaC692]

Well, based on the fact that we're talking about a very nice sound system, we may have to look a little bit deeper into the issues. Some soundcards (namely, the zs 7.1 and many other consumer level cards, EVEN the m-audio revolution 7.1) have an issue where they can not bypass k-mixer, and therefore resample a CD's 16bit/44.1khz audio to 16bit/48khz. There is subtle sound differentiation, and some people with trained ears wouldn't accept that. If you are only interested in watching DVD's with ac-3 streams, then the card wouldn't be much of an issue. However, if you plan on listening to good DVD-A, or you'd like to upsample CD audio to 24bit/176.4khz, I'd get either a RME 96/32 card, or maybe the m-audio audiophile 24/96. Or you could go with a delta 410. Your best bet to research these sound issues would be the avsforums, avsforum.com forums, check out the HTPC section. You may learn a whole lot more about your situation as well. Look forward to reading a reply from someone

 

[Nebor]

Indeed, as the user of the analog ports on my Audigy 2, I had forgotten about the digital output upsampling done by the Audigy, which is hated by pretty much everyone.

I have heard that the newer Revolutions actually don't upsample that little bit. Heard someone on 3dss took their old Revo back to get a new one to fix that problem....

ACtually, I just looked up your motherboard, and you have onboard S\PIDF. What's wrong with that? It should do exactly what you want with no problems. It looks like your board uses optical instead of coaxial though, but there are adapters to change optical to coax. That's definitely what you should do, since you don't have to worry about motherboards upsampling or downsampling anything, they generally just pass through unaltered.

 

[TaylorMaC692]

eh, no. the motherboard's onboard sound will upsample the audio to 16bit/48khz, that's almost guaranteed. It will not pass an untouched ASIO stream. It will upsample through k-mixer to 16/48. All of the m-audio revolution 7.1's do this as well. An example of a card that wouldn't upsample would be an m-audio delta 24/96, audiophile 24/96, delta 410, or RME offerings. Again, if all you're looking for is an ac-3 stream (mostly just dvd's we're talking about here, couldn't play DVD-a either), then your current sblive will do nearly as well as the other cards. Where they take the cake is when you're trying to play bit for bit correct audio.

 

[Nebor]

So are the analog outputs of the Audigy 2 upsampled as well?