Question about the 2 pins digital port on CD and DVD drives...?

[SuperFreaky]

I currently have a DVD drive with a 4 pin cord going out to my sound card labeled analog...
1. What does the 2 pin digital one do?
2. Will it let my drive do digital audio
extraction?
3. Where does it plug into on my soundcard?
4. Anybody know a good website to buy them at?

 

[SuperFreaky]

I can't find anywhere that sells these thing seperately!! or even the analogue ones!!

 

[Mday]

1. it allows the computer to use digital CD audio instead of analog. this means cleaner sound when playing audio CDs.

2. not if your drive cannot do it. you don't need the cable for DAE.

3. if your card does not have an internal 2pin spdif, then you can't.

4. nope, sorry.

--

though most drives do have those 2 pins, having it does not mean the drive actually supports digital out via those pins. meaning, those pins don't do anything for most drives.

 

[Zorba]

I use the Digital cable on my CD-Rom & the analog one on my CD-R.

1. Sends a digital signal to soundcard
2. The digital one lets you rip digital sound.
3. You have to have a Soundcard that surpports it, I know that the Live cards do, not sure about the others.
4. No. But you should be able to find them at Crapusa or Best Buy.

 

[SuperFreaky]

I've already tried all the local stores... Radio Shack, CompUSA, Best Buy, Circuit City... none of them have it!

not even cables.com has them from what I can tell

So which is it? will it let me do DAE or not?
I have a CL 2x DVD Drive Model 4220.

 

[DeeK]

Digital Audio Extraction goes through the ribbon cable connected to your DVD-ROM drive. It has nothing to do with the CD digital or CD analog connections.

 

[Pariah]

You can't do DAE with the digital cable. The only soundcards I have seen that have the 2 pin digital connector are the SBLive's, and they come with the cable. If your soundcard doesn't have the connector, don't worry about finding the cable. Just because the drive has a connector on it, doesn't mean it actually works. Some CDROM manufacturers put the plug on the drive, but it doesn't actually do anything. The CL DVD should work fine though.

 

[Eug]

You can also plug that directly into a speaker system's SPDIF input. Just be sure the sound system can handle a 5 V output, which virtually all computer (but not home theater) systems can.

As for the cable, this is how I have my system setup.

1. DVD-ROM digital --> SPDIF input on SB Live!
2. CD-ROM digital --> SPDIF input on Live!Drive
3. CD-RW analogue --> Analogue input on SB Live!

I built the cable for the second one by ripping out the turbo LED plug from an old case and splicing it to a plain $1 RCA phono plug. Voila, instant coaxial SPDIF cable.

This way I have three drives outputting sound through my SB Live!, and two of them are in digital.

 

[SuperFreaky]

Thank you soo much for the help!!! I have an led cord sitting here already to go!