Solution to the momment of silence for digital audio?

[imported_cosmotic]

I have my Logitech Z-5500 speakers hooked up to my HDA Digital X-Plosion sound card through a toslink cable using DTS Connect.

After momments of silence the speakers say "no digital signal". If anything makes any sound when it has this message, the first half as second of the sound is cut off. From what I have heard, this is standard for all digital connections, no matter what decoder/speakers/reciever, sound card, and encoding. I expereince the same thing if i chose Dolby Digital or just normal digital audio without encoding.

Does any one have any ideas on how to eliminate the cut off?

One solution I was thinking of was a program that ran int he backround always producing sillence so that the sound card was sending out silence to the speakers constnatly and the digital connection was never lost. Does any one know of any software like this? If no one can come up with any and there is significant intrest in something of that nature, I may try to write it myself...

-Charlie Hayes

 

[PurdueRy]

This is pretty much something you are going to have to deal with. The Z-5500 have a cheap "receiver" and therefore you can't expect too much outta it.

shoulda gotten the X-fi instead 😉

 

[imported_cosmotic]

The X-Fi costs over 2x what the Digital X-Plosion does, and it cant even do Dolby Digital or DTS Connect. Plus Creative has the WORST drivers and software in the world! And Creative is anti-competitive. Why should I have gotten the X-Fi?

That sucks about the reciever. I called logitech and they offered to RMA the head unit thing. I don't see how it would help if you say its a design flaw though.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: cosmotic
The X-Fi costs over 2x what the Digital X-Plosion does, and it cant even do Dolby Digital or DTS Connect. Plus Creative has the WORST drivers and software in the world! And Creative is anti-competitive. Why should I have gotten the X-Fi?

That sucks about the reciever. I called logitech and they offered to RMA the head unit thing. I don't see how it would help if you say its a design flaw though.

I didn't say it was an error. Simply cheaper receivers and sometimes even nicer ones have this delay. But the nicer ones mostly do not have as large of one, avoiding the drop in sound.

You should have gotten an X-fi because the Xtreme music version is CHEAPER and it currently has the best analog outputs available...

http://www.pricegrabber.com/p__Creative_X_Fi_XtremeMusic,__11274962/search=X-fi

It can do Dolby digital and DTS...it just cannot encode them in realtime

 

[alcoholbob]

I sorta agree. Considering you are using multimedia speakers, it makes a lot more sense to be using analog interconnects. The noise differential between digital and analog is neglible unless you are using something like a digital switching receiver/amplifier.

The only reason I would see using digital with multimedia speakers are to save the number of wires used, but really you are paying the price with audio delay here, and less EAX functionality.

 

[shortylickens]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
This is pretty much something you are going to have to deal with. The Z-5500 have a cheap "receiver" and therefore you can't expect too much outta it.

shoulda gotten the X-fi instead 😉

Just exactly what does one have to do with the other?

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: shortylickens

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
This is pretty much something you are going to have to deal with. The Z-5500 have a cheap "receiver" and therefore you can't expect too much outta it.

shoulda gotten the X-fi instead 😉

Just exactly what does one have to do with the other?

In the other thread on the X-Plosion I suggested he get the X-fi in his situation. Now there is an issue with the card he picked. I just feel like he really went the wrong direction. Granted he can get whatever he likes, but I don't think it was the best choice in this case.

Don't think I am against the X-Plosion either. If one was to look I just suggested one to a person with a receiver without 5.1 analog ins today. I also considered buying one in the rather large thread on AVS forum. I decided against it after hearing about lack of customer support, EAX support, and it does not work in hardware mode in some games.

When you have a multimedia speaker system..the cables are small...theres only 3...no splitter needed and they tend to not have to run more than a couple feet. It appears that the OP thought the digital would have higher sound quality...however since the audio is being compressed to DTS/DD it is actually at a lower sound quality comparitively.

 

[imported_cosmotic]

The problem isnt a delay, its a cut out.
I think this is the first time I have heard any one reccomend a Creative product.

I dont care about EAX really.

From what the specs say and reviews say, the X-Plosion has really good analog out, although none compare it directly to X-Fi.

And for less than $10 dollars more than the X-Fi at NewEgg, I think that DDL, DTSC, seperate digital out/line in/mic, and MUCH better drivers are worth it. Oh, and not giving Creative my money.

As far as a possible solution, having Warcraft 3 running in the background works, and for a process that takes up only 54MB of memory compared to Firefox's 100MB on a 2GB system, it doesn't seem that bad. Although any other sugguestions are more than welcome.

 

[PurdueRy]

By delay, I mean a delay until the audio is actually output to the speakers, I know exactly what you are talking about. Its a fault of the decoder taking time to process the newly input DD signal. So either you have to constantly maintain an output...like you did with warIII running...or deal with it