Optical out on sound card

[whateverdood]

i currently have a soundblaster audigy ls and my computer is hooked up to my onkyo receiver. i want to enable s/pdif passthrough so my receiver handles all of the audio instead of my sound card.

what, in your opinion, would be better...

getting a cheap soundcard with optical output ( dynex 5.1 )

and buying an optical audio cable and hooking that up to my receiver.

or.. keeping my audigy ls and buying a 3.5mm to rca s/pdif cable.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Welcome to AT.

Are you aware that you lose true surround for sources that are not DD/DTS encoded with digital?
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=30&threadid=1940133&enterthread=y

If you were to get a new card, I would suggest getting a Chaintech AV-710 for ~$25. It should include a cheap little optical cable if your comptuer is close enough to use it.

If your audigy still works though, I'd say just go for the adapter and use its digital output.

 

[whateverdood]

yeah i was thinking about just keeping the card i have now but i could get a new card + optical cable tomorrow rather than have to wait when i order the s/pdif online. i'm going home this weekend to get my receiver and speakers so i wanted it as soon as possible. i have been using a 3.5mm to rca (red and white) adapter i got from radioshack but wouldn't i get better quality if my receiver was handling the audio rather than my soundcard?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: whateverdood
yeah i was thinking about just keeping the card i have now but i could get a new card + optical cable tomorrow rather than have to wait when i order the s/pdif online. i'm going home this weekend to get my receiver and speakers so i wanted it as soon as possible. i have been using a 3.5mm to rca (red and white) adapter i got from radioshack but wouldn't i get better quality if my receiver was handling the audio rather than my soundcard?

Depends on your receiver.

By sending digital you're just handing the work that the soundcard would do off to the receiver. An audigy 2 will do a pretty good job, so it might not make much of a difference if it does the work or the receiver does.

You know... I forget if the A2 needs a mono or a stereo 3.5mm plug to output digital coaxial. You might even be able to use your existing cable to try it out initially.

 

[whateverdood]

hmm i have an onkyo tx-sr601. i assumed that my receiver would put out better quality than my soundcard. about the surround issue, that's not really a problem since i mainly just use my two floorstanding speakers and occasionally use two little bookshelves as rears.

 

[Auric]

I suggest getting a 3.5mm mono plug to RCA jack adapter then use any video (aka digital audio) RCA cable to the receiver.

The receiver will have better digital to analog convertors and the connection will be simple and sans line noise.

If, for some reason, a ground-loop issue arose which you didn't want to try fixing then an optical connection could be used simply for the electrical isolation. That could be done with a mobo supplied bracket or otherwise bought seperately for $5-10.