Question - Soundcard to Home Receiver connection

[chewie999]

Hi guys,

I need to ask a few questions regarding how-to connect my soundcard to my home surround system. I am planning to upgrade my soundcard so I want to find the best solution.

1. I would be able to connect my soundcard to my surround using Creative's Home Theater Cable. My problem is that this cable is not available where I live (Hong Kong) and my PC to surround is 3 meter (9 ft) away. I can't tell whether those cable can reach that far.

Is there a way for me to purchase (make) those 3 cables separately so that the results are the same as Creative's cables?

2. My second alternative would be to buy Creative's X-Fi and connect to my surround using the digital cable. I use this to watch downloaded movies from my PC. Would the quality of sound really suffer using the digital connection?

On a separate thread, I have read that a digital connection may be a better choice if I have a surround processor (currently using Denon AVR-2808). Would this be true in my case?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

[Soundmanred]

I'd use a digital coaxial connection to your reciever. You'll only need one cable that way.
There's nothing special about their cable other than not having to purchase the parts needed to do the same thing.

Edit: After looking at that cable, I saw that two of the 1/8 jacks are 4 conductor type, and those are not readily available unless you want to make your own. I couldn't find any premade ones that had the 4 conductor plug that break out to 3 RCA plugs.
Short answer - you CAN make your own.

 

[Mango1970]

An alternate solution, if you have a recent motherboard and it has built in audio, is to connect the digital out from the mobo to the home receiver. This is how I had my HTPC set up. All my motherboards (and I have 3) have either the coaxial, or optical and in 2 cases, both. The sound quality at this point is moot... as in my opinion when you are going digital out... it makes no difference what type of sound card you have... at least I have found that in sound quality. I originally was hoping to find an audio card that had a digital out but it seemed that the only option were realy expensive versions that required the full retail platinum version or some sort of break-out box. I found the built in version on my 3 mobos to be excellent and a breeze to set up!!! the sound quality through my Onkyo 635 receiver is stellar>

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: Soundmanred
I'd use a digital coaxial connection to your reciever. You'll only need one cable that way.
There's nothing special about their cable other than not having to purchase the parts needed to do the same thing.

Edit: After looking at that cable, I saw that two of the 1/8 jacks are 4 conductor type, and those are not readily available unless you want to make your own. I couldn't find any premade ones that had the 4 conductor plug that break out to 3 RCA plugs.
Short answer - you CAN make your own.

He could use digital, but since he's got a Creative card he wont get true surround in video games by going that way.

As for quality, it would be just fine either way.

 

[chewie999]

I am not too familiar with cables so just want to confirm my understanding.

If I were to build my own, would it be 3 x minijack to RCA cables to achieve the same results as the Creative Home Theater cables? Is it that simple or is the center/sub out cable different than the other two?

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: chewie999
I am not too familiar with cables so just want to confirm my understanding.

If I were to build my own, would it be 3 x minijack to RCA cables to achieve the same results as the Creative Home Theater cables? Is it that simple or is the center/sub out cable different than the other two?

Provided all you want is 5.1...yes its that simple.