What is Digital Out for?

[IceT]

There is a "digital-out" port on the back of my Audigy card and it's a 1/8-inch mini female connector. If I have a normal speaker setup (two satellite speakers and a subwoofer, can I plug the 1/8-inch male connector to the digial out port?

Thanks.

 

[astriy]

no, the "normal" speakers are all analog, the only way to use the digital out is if you buy a surround sound speaker system like the klipsc or cambridge, or hook up to your home audio receiver.

 

[nord1899]

The digital out port does one of two things depending on your settings.

1 - Send a digital signal to an external decoder box. Typical example is sending a Dolby Digital (AC3) signal to an external decoder. Digital is a cleaner more pure way of sending audio signals instead of analogue, so if you use an external system (home stereo), this is the way to go.

2 - Send center/subwoofer signal to a 5.1 system (see Cambridge Soundworks stuff). These are the 5th channel (center) and the .1 channel (subwoofer) from DVD's. You need a 5.1 speaker setup that takes analogue signals to use this (ie. Klipsch 5.1 ProMedia). Ones that take a digital signal (ie. Midiland 8200) would use setup #1.

Hope that helps.