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digital spdif or 6-chan direct?

I

iJeff

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 1, 2004
Messages
297
My mobo has onboard sound. (ports for 5.1 and an s/pdif out)

There's an option to have a digital sound signal come out of the s/pdif.

should I use the 6 channel direct ports or use the s/pdif digital output?
 
what kind of sound system do you have? if its just computer speakers, use the 6 channel (if just stereo, just the little green jack). if you're hooking it up to a surround sound reciever, then you might want to use digital
 
the speakers i'll be getting are teh logitech z-5500's, which are technically PC speakers. they support 6-channel direct (1/8" stereo plugs), optical (toslink) and digital (coaxial) inputs.

the s/pdif outs on my computer look like they're RCA connectors. is this different from coaxial?
 
Nope, digital coax is a single RCA jack.

The big question is what motherboard do you have?
The reason this is a big question is because unless you board has soundstorm you will only get two channels of audio in games and other media that is not already encoded into a Dolby digital signal so you are prolly gonna end up using analog.
 
Mister X said:
Nope, digital coax is a single RCA jack.

The big question is what motherboard do you have?
The reason this is a big question is because unless you board has soundstorm you will only get two channels of audio in games and other media that is not already encoded into a Dolby digital signal so you are prolly gonna end up using analog.
Click to expand...

Some of the azalia boards also support 'dolby digital live' (the realtek 880D i think) Most likely the op won't have it though as they're pretty rare. The only use for digital out in that case is for dvds and some xvids, games will only be stereo or maybe dolby prologic (not full 5.1).
 
my mobo is a DFI LanParty nForce 4 Ultra chipset.

the audio on it is a Realtek ALC 850.
 
That mobo doesn't have the Dolby Digital Live option, so you would need to use 6-channel analog out on that realtek 850. Bleh!

You could get a CMI PCI card that has DD Live, or a good analog card with good opamps/dacs. The Realtek is horrible, IMO.
 
What sound card would you guys recommend if I were to listen to music about 75% of the time and game about the other 25%?

I know the soundblaster series has superior audio mixing for gaming (eax effects and such), but doesn't have as good normal (mp3, dvd) audio as some others like turtle beach -- is this true? To what extent?
 
The new X-Fi's are pretty damn nice for music and movies, especially if you hook it up to a HT rig, since the new Bass Management is properly designed now for HT receivers. Just enable +15dB Subwoofer Gain on the Bass Management tab.
 
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