New Z-5500 Owner

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Darkatom

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 2, 2006
Messages
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Well I'll recieve my new speakers sometime soon and I must say im very excited to hear what all the rage is about with them. Anyways while doing some research on the Z-5500s, I came across people who say that you need some "special cable" you need in order to get all the dolby sounds. Could someone please shed some light on this as I dont want to miss out on anything, thanks.
 
That cable would the optical cable or coaxial cable for digital sound. This only works when you AC3 or digital streams passing through such as a dolby digital encoded or dts dvd or certain games. Most mp3/music are not dts or DD. The only you would get sound output through digital is if you have a DDL card such as the Azuentech.
 
gotkilled said:
That cable would the optical cable or coaxial cable for digital sound. This only works when you AC3 or digital streams passing through such as a dolby digital encoded or dts dvd or certain games. Most mp3/music are not dts or DD. The only you would get sound output through digital is if you have a DDL card such as the Azuentech.
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Do not listen to the above quoted. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "all the dolby sounds" but regardless, use the analog cables supplied with the speakers. That's the best way to hook these speakers up to a computer. If you are watching movies that have Dolby or DTS, that's fine, your software player will decode it, send it to the sound card and out to your speakers. If you want to hook something like a cable box or DVD player to the speakers, however, then you can use the coax or digital inputs.
 
The cable theyre refering to is probably just a digital cable (optic fibre or coax cable) which transmits the music to the amp/speakers as data instead of an analog signal(its not application dependent, all sound will be sent as data). Digital is used to get a cleaner signal to the amp with less chance of interfernce so the sound is clearer than analog.

Easiest way to see wether you need one of these cables for all the features is to check your manual but it sounds like whoever you were talking to was just speaking a load of bull.

On a side note, connecting your computer to the z5500s with a digital cable, irregardless of wether itll work with 'DTS' or whatever will make the speakers sound a tonne better than the cables that come with the speakers (ive got z5500s so i know :p).
 
but most of the time you will only get 2 speaker output over the digital cable unless your sound card supports dolby digital live real time encoding

the nf2 soundstorm did/does and a hand full of others do support encoding in real time to dts 5.1 over a coax or optical cable

on the other hand, if you use the coax/optical cable and have your dvd software setup to pass the stream to the spdif out.. it should work correctly.. but thats trial and error..
 
So I should just stick to the supplied cables ? By the looks of it a optical cable would not change much. Oh and the speakers will hook up to a X-Fi ofcourse ;) .
 
Darkatom said:
So I should just stick to the supplied cables ? By the looks of it a optical cable would not change much. Oh and the speakers will hook up to a X-Fi ofcourse ;) .
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If you use your speakers for music i highly suggest you get a digital cable (optic or coax) as itll increase the quality of the sound by a tonne. Also, as 99.9% of music is just 2-channel stereo the fact digital might not do 5.1 shouldnt matter. You can make the Z5500s output 2-channel stereo to all 5 speakers(2 left, 2 right and 1 centre) which is your best bet for playing music.

As for surround sound games/movies, stick to the supplied cables if your X-Fi cant do 5.1 digital (check manual).
 
If you are sending the raw sound data out of an X-Fi via digital cable to the Z5500 speakers, then is the sound card performing any functions that it is designed for in the way of decoding, processing, etc? Aren't you then realying on the receiver functions built into the speakers? If so, then is an expensive X-Fi card of any value, or will a cheaper card with a digital out serve equally well?

I'm using the supplied annalog cables (X-Fi to Z5500) and find it hard to believe that the sound (mostly play URGE subsription tracks) could get any better; however, I'm allways up for trying new things (e.g. a digital cable).

Zo: When you say that the sound is "a tonne better", does that mean that a normal discriminating user (unlike a professional music type) is likely to notice a difference? PC Music Guy appears to be taking issue with you on your point.
 
rblews said:
If you are sending the raw sound data out of an X-Fi via digital cable to the Z5500 speakers, then is the sound card performing any functions that it is designed for in the way of decoding, processing, etc? Aren't you then realying on the receiver functions built into the speakers? If so, then is an expensive X-Fi card of any value, or will a cheaper card with a digital out serve equally well?
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Simple answer: A cheaper card (AV-710 for less than $40 for example) is able to output just as good if not better digital signal than the X-Fi.

The Z5500 has just as good if not better DAC (digital-analog-converter) than the X-Fi plus your minimising the possible interference the signal might get if it had to travel across analog cables between the computer and the amp.

For stereo music, you'd be just as well off with an AV-710 but for games the X-Fi has additional features(takes no CPU time, has EAX etc, 5.1 etc) which justify its price in the gaming arena.

rblews said:
I'm using the supplied annalog cables (X-Fi to Z5500) and find it hard to believe that the sound (mostly play URGE subsription tracks) could get any better; however, I'm allways up for trying new things (e.g. a digital cable).
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A digital cable will probably set you back $20 and then you wont have to worry that there might be something better there all the time heh.

rblews said:
Zo: When you say that the sound is "a tonne better", does that mean that a normal discriminating user (unlike a professional music type) is likely to notice a difference? PC Music Guy appears to be taking issue with you on your point.
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By 'a tonne better' im basically meaning that music on the whole will sound alot clearer and the bass especially gets alot more "oomph". I personally noticed a large jump in the quality which more than justified the $30aus i spent on the cable.

I'm not some audiophile wanker who thinks $10000 cables are going to sound massive amounts better than $200 ones or that putting $100 stoppers under my tube amp will make it sound 'more pure' but I know a good jump in sound when i hear it.

You may aswell buy a digital cable cause it'll give you 3 stereo analog inputs to the Z5500 you didnt have before and you'll be able to make up your own mind about the quality instead of two randoms on the net trying to make up your mind for you :p.
 
ZOMGWTFBBQ said:
You may aswell buy a digital cable cause it'll give you 3 stereo analog inputs to the Z5500 you didnt have before and you'll be able to make up your own mind about the quality instead of two randoms on the net trying to make up your mind for you :p.
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I would certain agree with this statement. You can get a pretty cheap digital cable and try it out. For me, analog is much less of a hassle. When listening to mp3 (128kbps to 320kbps) I cannot really tell the difference between using the analog or digital, but I don't listen to my music loud. Also, I recently upgraded my DVD player and switched from using the digital in to the analog in on the Z5500s. I switched to analog so I could use Dolby TrueHD 5.1 for movies, and I must say that I cannot notice a difference in sound quality either way. Of course, I'm not really trying to hear a difference either, I'm just enjoying the output. :)
 
Well I just got my z-5500s today and have them all hooked up. I also purchased a digital coaxial cable in order to enable the DD 5.1 . Now im just confused as to were on the x-fi I plug the coaxial in and do I need to set anything on the speaker control pod. Im also confused as to wether my dvd program (WinDVD 7 Platnium) takes care of all of this. While, writing this I plugged the other end of the coaxial into the last free port on the x-fi thats not being taken up by the analog connections, but when I switch the input to coaxial on the control pod it says there is "no digital data". Anyone have any ideas on whats wrong and could someone post a link on a coaxial or optical cable thats required maybe I bought a wrong one :confused: .
 
Darkatom said:
Well I just got my z-5500s today and have them all hooked up. I also purchased a digital coaxial cable in order to enable the DD 5.1 . Now im just confused as to were on the x-fi I plug the coaxial in and do I need to set anything on the speaker control pod. Im also confused as to wether my dvd program (WinDVD 7 Platnium) takes care of all of this. While, writing this I plugged the other end of the coaxial into the last free port on the x-fi thats not being taken up by the analog connections, but when I switch the input to coaxial on the control pod it says there is "no digital data". Anyone have any ideas on whats wrong and could someone post a link on a coaxial or optical cable thats required maybe I bought a wrong one :confused: .
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you have to go into control panel and into audio hq and change the options in there to digital bypass if i remember correctly...

or you can go into the creative volume bar then on the THX symbol then change to digital...

Also in windvd you have to change the option into spdix or bypass or something to that, in the audio options.

hope all that incomplete talk helped you..at work and not to familiar with how it works.
 
Viper16 said:
you have to go into control panel and into audio hq and change the options in there to digital bypass if i remember correctly...

or you can go into the creative volume bar then on the THX symbol then change to digital...

Also in windvd you have to change the option into spdix or bypass or something to that, in the audio options.

hope all that incomplete talk helped you..at work and not to familiar with how it works.
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It did work and thanks for the help :) .
 
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