Digital speakers......help needed

[Hamid]

Hello guys,

I used to run my pc with normal creative 2.1 speaker sets and for just testing I connected my pc to the creative 5.1 digital speakers (5700D With the external decoder). These speakers I usually use with my dvd player to make a reasonable cheap home theater.

Now the problem is, my dvd player is connected to the decoder/amplifier with the optical cable and I hear true 5.1 discrete positional audio while watching to movies but when I connected my X-fi with the speaker set it only out put the 2 channel sound ands my rear speakers were not working. I changed the speaker settings from the audio control panel to 5.1 and the out put to digital only, even then the speakers only out put sound in the front. I tried to test the speater settings from the control pannel, even the sound which is supposed to be out put from rear speakers is coming out of front speakers.

Now the intersting part, I inserted a dvd in the rom and played it in the WINDVD 7. There is a option in the windvd audio control panel to out put only digital sound than I was able to hear the actual discrete 5.1 audio out of speakers. See below picture.



In games I played FEAR, QUAKE 4, and CALL OF DUTY and no one produced the 5.1 audio.

So guys, I need your help to understand the problem or if I am missing something.

 

[BBA]

This should be in the audio forum.

The answer is the Creative cards DO NOT encode 5.1 digital. You will need the analog connections for game playback. This is usually not a problem because the X-Fi dacs are as good (if not better) than most speakers systems that have built in decoders anyway. You only get the front channels encoded into PCM on the digital out with the creative cards.

The 5.1 in DVDs is because the sound card passes the AC3 stream directly out from the disk to the digital connection.

 

[Hamid]

But isnt there any possibility to force sound card to out put AC3 signal only when doing stuff other than watching dvds.

 

[BBA]

No.

You have to use analog from the sound card.

 

[Hamid]

Then why would creative make digital speakers , I mean speakers with the external decoder. I understand that creative speakers are primarily meant to be used with pc and connectivity to dvd players, playstation etc is secondary, than if digital speaskers cannot out put true 5.1 channel sound with normal windows application and games than why the hell would people buy that.

I have seen other people using their creative giga works digital speakers or logitech z5500 speakers with creative sound cards, then are they only listening to the 2 speaker sound only.

Need help here.

 

[Floruro]

LOL. Has it ever occured to you that games dont come with e.g. AC3 or DTS Digital sound????
Only then can we have 5.1 digital in games too, but not until that (or you get the encoder).
2-channel sound is 2 channel sound. The decoders can upmix 2 channel to 5.1 through prologic etc.

You are barking up the wrong tree buddy
If you want it the way you want, youll need an extra encoder, but for e.g. games you will most probably get a little sound lag. In any case, EAXHD or whatever on analogue will probably sound much better than your own encoded digital 5.1 signal. EAX also does not work in digital.

 

[Chastity]

The problem is that pc cards don't have a standard yet for outputting multichannel audio digitally without compression, since they only do S/PDIF. To fit multichannel over a single S/PDIF channel, it would need to be compressed down, and 2 known formats that achieve this is Dolby Digital and DTS. Creative on the Audigys had a mutant solution where they output 3 S/PDIF channels to do 5.1, but that is only supported on their own speaker sets.

Now to get multichannel audio to the speakers, you have these options:

1) analog out. This means you are using the output stage (DAC, opamps, etc) of the soundcard. If it's of good quality, then this can be just as good as using S/PDIF to an external unit. (Like in my case, using the X-Fi Elite Pro to a receiver, with the quad CS4398 DACs)

2) Encode the multichannel PCM output to DD/DTS on the soundcard. Bluegears especially is embracing this option, and they have cards that to either DD Live, or DD Live/DTS Live, and some other manufacturers also make a DD Live card.

3) Encode to DD/DTS externally. This would involve taking the 5.1 analog output (see above) of the soundcard, and then using an external encoder, encode to compressed multichannel S/PDIF as either DD or DTS. Creative's DTS-610 does just that.

4) Use another solution than S/PDIF that can do multichannel PCM uncompressed. Like HDMI or Firewire or something else compatible with HT receivers. Unfortunately, no soundcards have such an option for digital out.

Also note that when using digital out, you are then using the output stage of the external unit, which may or may not be better than the soundcard's.

 

[Hamid]

Thanks guys.........I realy appriciate your response on my query. I have thoroughly went through the X-fi fatal1ty manual and I found out that under the digital speaker setup they have only given the option to connect a 2.1 digital speakers. Anyway I now know this quite better and its time to buy new speakers for my pc.

 

[Hamid]

One more question? Can I use the optical output from my dvd player to the optical input of my X-fi front bay and can my sound card then use the AC3 stream emitting from my dvd player and upsample it to 7.1 audio via cmss.

How would 7.1 audio will feel via cmss?

If I buy creative S750 to connect to my X-fi, would they sound much better than my current speaker setup?

Oh god, I would have to sell my inspire now.