Optical 5.1 input to listen for PC

A

Azaloomi

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Is there a S/PDIF input card or USB dongle/box that enables 5.1 digital audio signal that could be listened on a PC and outputted to whatever soundcard you have?

This seems to be very close, but only supporting stereo:
https://hardforum.com/threads/my-gl...ized-pc-digital-input-simultaneously.2029014/

There seems to be a quite a bit of miscellaneous options on for eg. eBay, but knowing which one does what I'm looking for is another thing on its own. eBay search:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2332490.m570.l1313&_nkw=pc+toslink+input&_sacat=0

One possible result:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1662750793...p4MIOvH8GoBicFjhRunDP8kw==|tkp:Bk9SR5qhsb2CYw

With the previous item above, my doubt is that to listen to the 5.1 input it also changes the soundcard, thus you couldn't any longer output from the soundcard of you choice, probably much better than that one.
 
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some sound blasters still have optical in. maybe one of those would do?
 
LukeTbk said:
Have you look if the optical in of the sound blaster Z could do it
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...ve_labs_70sb150000004_sound_blaster_z_se.html

The manual does not seem to give any details.
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I thought about this, but although I did mention add-in card in OP, far most preferable option would be a simple USB input-only device. I have a pretty high end motherboard, which sound card should supposedly be second to none, what comes to integrated solutions anyway. Also adding an PCIE card would be troublesome, as it could split PCIE lanes as well as it's already physically very crowded and would install very close to my GPU and impair its airflow.

But still, I wonder how the said Sound Blaster Z would fare in audio quality in comparison with Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme's ALC4082, even with the risk of digressing? Perhaps most notably my current integrated sound chip is stated 120 dB SNR stereo playback output, while Sound Blaster Z SE is rated 116 dB SNR. If that would save me from buying and going the AV receiver route, I might seriously consider that, even though I have the image that Sound Blasters are a dying brand, not very well supported any longer software wise.

edit: Interesting. This seems to have optical input. Question remains does it support 5.1 modes and can it be listened in Windows 11 and played back from another selected soundcard? I might email Creative Labs about that.
https://en.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sound-blaster-g3

Or perhaps even better or more well suited, the G6:
https://en.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sound-blasterx-g6
 
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I used a sound blaster x-fi or something that had optical input to do that with my original xbox 20 years ago. It worked fine except for sometimes it would add a slight delay to the sound.

But why do you want to use optical input? It's extremely dated and doesn't support anywhere near the quality of modern audio solutions.
 
sharknice said:
I used a sound blaster x-fi or something that had optical input to do that with my original xbox 20 years ago. It worked fine except for sometimes it would add a slight delay to the sound.

But why do you want to use optical input? It's extremely dated and doesn't support anywhere near the quality of modern audio solutions.
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Just as a simple solution to route sound from my Samsung QLED TV to my Genelec 4.0 speakers connected to my PC's analog audio output ports. Albeit this simple idea looks more and more impossible the further I investigate into it.
 
Azaloomi said:
Just as a simple solution to route sound from my Samsung QLED TV to my Genelec 4.0 speakers connected to my PC's analog audio output ports. Albeit this simple idea looks more and more impossible the further I investigate into it.
Click to expand...

Yeah I would say it's probably more cost and trouble than it's worth. It would probably be cheaper and work better to just get a full on receiver and have your speakers, TV, and PC connected to that.

If your TV has a headphone jack or RCA sound out you can probably get stereo sound working cheap and easy.
 
uOpt said:
To me this looks promising:

https://www.amazon.com/Channel-Exte...r/dp/B0CNKTWJCK/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2D9ZLWH0899GF
Click to expand...

Under 10 euros including delivery from Aliexpress. I might just try this out:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805794121977.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.1.54cd4d244XrMqe&algo_pvid=26504c34-7e95-4eb5-bbae-ab95f80a09d2&algo_exp_id=26504c34-7e95-4eb5-bbae-ab95f80a09d2-0&pdp_npi=4@dis!EUR!19.85!9.93!!!21.26!!@21038ed817013307724983465eee3b!12000035156474682!sea!US!4218132387!&curPageLogUid=A9OV02sa4g20

But makes one quite suspicious when it lists USB1.1. Doesn't sound to me like that'd be enough to pass 5.1 data. But I guess there's some sort of money back quarantee, in theory.

Price-wise it's almost nothing compared to the Marantz Cinema 70s receiver, that would be my no. 1 choice for AV receiver solution on basis of my preliminary perusal.

edit: Another option:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805800834869.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.0.0.2cfdfocDfocDbA&gps-id=pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.40050.362094.0&scm_id=1007.40050.362094.0&scm-url=1007.40050.362094.0&pvid=c1141df9-0078-482b-94b0-eb22bfd51682&_t=gps-id:pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller,scm-url:1007.40050.362094.0,pvid:c1141df9-0078-482b-94b0-eb22bfd51682,tpp_buckets:668#2846#8114#1999&pdp_npi=4@dis!EUR!20.23!10.32!!!21.67!!@2103200517013307881214103e912c!12000035191521437!rec!US!4218132387!

Does mention AC-3 (DD) and DTS. Also reads "SPDIF IN= Optical Fibre Input: Optical Fibre Audio Input to the sound card for compositing and editing in the computer."

edit2: Actually on the first link it changes to 18€ incl. shipping when I change it to ship to Finland. But here's the same in blue only under 8€:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005983649921.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.21.26b2316ftPXB7Q&algo_pvid=0df4738a-1449-4df3-b561-3b17814eaeba&algo_exp_id=0df4738a-1449-4df3-b561-3b17814eaeba-10&pdp_npi=4@dis!EUR!9.17!7.79!!!70.11!!@211b617b17013342158928624ee1b8!12000035176445672!sea!FI!4218132387!&curPageLogUid=GxuMOPRDV7Hv

edit3: I bought it for a try out. 7.79€ all included. I would've prefered the black colouring, but cheapest I could find was ~14€.
 
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Out of those products you ordered, I'm not seeing any DD decoding support. If they mention DD or DTS, it's probably pass-through. I'm not certain but I'm just inferring from the prices (DD decoding isn't cheap, you know).

Honestly, I suspect a sound card is your best option. It probably won't limit the air-flow as much as you think it will (sound cards are usually tiny and GPU's have massive fans that go along the span of the card). If your mobo isn't already crowded, I don't think you'll have issues with lane splitting, but I could be wrong.
 
t1337duder said:
Out of those products you ordered, I'm not seeing any DD decoding support. If they mention DD or DTS, it's probably pass-through. I'm not certain but I'm just inferring from the prices (DD decoding isn't cheap, you know).

...
Click to expand...

If so, are there software or other methods to decode the raw stream on the fly on Windows 11 PC and play it back from connected speakers?
 
Azaloomi said:
Is there a S/PDIF input card or USB dongle/box that enables 5.1 digital audio signal that could be listened on a PC and outputted to whatever soundcard you have?

This seems to be very close, but only supporting stereo:
https://hardforum.com/threads/my-gl...ized-pc-digital-input-simultaneously.2029014/

There seems to be a quite a bit of miscellaneous options on for eg. eBay, but knowing which one does what I'm looking for is another thing on its own. eBay search:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2332490.m570.l1313&_nkw=pc+toslink+input&_sacat=0

One possible result:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/166275079307?hash=item26b6c45c8b:g:NsQAAOSwSmZk2yGt&amdata=enc:AQAIAAAAwAJTQw5gf16oDwKmf+4Q7Ne4eGPmoiJw7Z02SImfCNsbuntkvFU9WiSOe7mk1m+L+m9RobRfNm+iyjXZTS+Z7itPuItOkn6oo10RXTJaf3tMmdCfa4yKMGANqIhgqVKBdO1EeMnyAfsr9E64HIuDMfvHN18WWZSy1BIcLY9c8/1RRZnDoP2ADelt6w87GtoNLq+w0DJDfH4J9wM3g9CgND0rSeS3qHqdRrGhV/iCXMp4MIOvH8GoBicFjhRunDP8kw==|tkp:Bk9SR5qhsb2CYw

With the previous item above, my doubt is that to listen to the 5.1 input it also changes the soundcard, thus you couldn't any longer output from the soundcard of you choice, probably much better than that one.
Click to expand...
You really need to provide more information and detail to get help with this.

1. What is the source of the 5.1 signal - is it a Blu-Ray player, a TV, a streamer, etc.
2. What is your output stage meaning, when you see yourself listening to the original 5.1 source, are you listening to it in Stereo or 5.1 and is it on an actual 5.1 speaker system? (give details - do you have this already?) or do you want to listen in some kind of "simulated" 5.1 on headphones or speakers.

I've written extensively - probably more than almost anyone - about using surround sound (5.1 or 7.1) on the PC and there are three main ways to do it and they all have downsides:

Encoded and compressed Optical 5.1
Discrete RCA inputs
HDMI

It mostly depends on what you're listening to - specifically whether it's positional audio for gaming or encoded surround sound for movies.
Overall, an HDMI based output system is going to be the easiest to setup and works best with both gaming and content but you need an HDMI monitor on your PC and with many gaming PCs only running display port, you have to deal with that some how.
 
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DoubleTap said:
You really need to provide more information and detail to get help with this.

1. What is the source of the 5.1 signal - is it a Blu-Ray player, a TV, a streamer, etc.
2. What is your output stage meaning, when you see yourself listening to the original 5.1 source, are you listening to it in Stereo or 5.1 and is it on an actual 5.1 speaker system? (give details - do you have this already?) or do you want to listen in some kind of "simulated" 5.1 on headphones or speakers.

I've written extensively - probably more than almost anyone - about using surround sound (5.1 or 7.1) on the PC and there are three main ways to do it and they all have downsides:

Encoded and compressed Optical 5.1
Discrete RCA inputs
HDMI

It mostly depends on what you're listening to - specifically whether it's positional audio for gaming or encoded surround sound for movies.
Overall, an HDMI based output system is going to be the easiest to setup and works best with both gaming and content but you need an HDMI monitor on your PC and with many gaming PCs only running display port, you have to deal with that some how.
Click to expand...
Source is at least for now or for good a TV only, mainly different streaming services, which I believe many provide 5.1 sound at least in DD. As mentioned somewhere above I have 4.0 Genelec speaker setup connected to my PC's mobo's analog outs. I believe the PC hardware/software should properly handle the redirectiong of the missing center channel and subwoofer.
 
Azaloomi said:
Source is at least for now or for good a TV only, mainly different streaming services, which I believe many provide 5.1 sound at least in DD. As mentioned somewhere above I have 4.0 Genelec speaker setup connected to my PC's mobo's analog outs. I believe the PC hardware/software should properly handle the redirectiong of the missing center channel and subwoofer.
Click to expand...
First, I think we could get the TV output into your PC and out to your speakers but to the best of my knowledge, Windows only handles stereo "line in" - so the most realistic solution is a stereo solution.

Second, even if you were going to somehow handle multi channel audio in your PC, you would need:
1. A device that takes HDMI multi channel and breaks it out to multiple analog channels
2. A device that takes a compressed and encoded 5.1 optical signal and decodes it to multi channel inside of Windows. (I doubt this exists)

The problem, as I see it, is that you chose very nice speakers with extremely limited connectivity - if you had a secondary input on these, we could find a way to just pipe in your TV sound and you just switch inputs, or you could do what I do and use the optical input with the Windows mixer (this works extremely well and I use it all the time)

Also - you mentioned that you thought the PC could just somehow "mix" the center channel into the L/R channel. This is something decent AVRs can do (via the DSP) but it can be challenging to do on a PC where audio tends to be either stereo or multi channel.
One of the issues I had with the Asus USB 7.1 external sound card some years ago (with it's analog 7.1 outs connected to the RCA inputs on my AVR) was that while it would run multi channel gaming sound very well, as soon as I played music, it would only play in the L/R channels - and what I discovered was that my AVR (and I think most AVRs) disable all DSP capabilities when running analog inputs - so my music would play to my L/R speakers but there was no bass management at all - no subwoofer (even though I had a sub) because the sound card just faithfully sent L/R sound and nothing in the chain would pull out the bass and make it 2.1)

Now that I think about it, you *MIGHT* be able to use Equalizer APO to make a "ghost center" if you could get the multi channel input, but I tried doing that and found it difficult and counter intuitive.

My advice is to either
1. Use your PC as the streamer (so at least you start with the audio in the PC) - probably your analog speakers won't let you get DD since you're not using a connection with content protection
2. Just enjoy it in stereo.
 
I do have a Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion PCIe in a box tucked away in a closet, or actually even two. I had disregarded this partly, as I assumed there's no software support for it any longer in Windows 11, but it seems there's a Daniel K support pack for it dating a couple of years back:
https://danielkawakami.blogspot.com/

The card has an optical input. I might just try it depending how it goes with that optical USB box I ordered a few days ago from Aliexpress.
 
Azaloomi said:
I do have a Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion PCIe in a box tucked away in a closet, or actually even two. I had disregarded this partly, as I assumed there's no software support for it any longer in Windows 11, but it seems there's a Daniel K support pack for it dating a couple of years back:
https://danielkawakami.blogspot.com/

The card has an optical input. I might just try it depending how it goes with that optical USB box I ordered a few days ago from Aliexpress.
Click to expand...
The x3 and x4 have optical input but as I mentioned above, that's the easy part...
 
Holy crapshoot. It works. I would not have believid it. That blue little box from Ali arrived a good while ago, but it turned out that I had misplaced all my optical cables somewhere. Today I accidentally happened to stumble upon them and got on to it.

No surprise there: The bundled micro USB cable didn't work. I've grown to expect this from these dollar cost China items. Actually it turned out to be a power only cable, which didn't do anything for the optical box. To get everyone on the same page, I'm speaking of this one here (this listing's price have nearly tripled from what I paid 7.79€):
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005983649921.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.21.26b2316ftPXB7Q&algo_pvid=0df4738a-1449-4df3-b561-3b17814eaeba&algo_exp_id=0df4738a-1449-4df3-b561-3b17814eaeba-10&pdp_npi=4@dis!EUR!9.17!7.79!!!70.11!!@211b617b17013342158928624ee1b8!12000035176445672!sea!FI!4218132387!&curPageLogUid=GxuMOPRDV7Hv

So, connecting a optical toslink cable from my 2021 Samsung QLED (QE55Q70AATXXC) to the box, while it's connected to the PC with USB cable, I can now listen to the tv via PC. I have to go to Windows Control Panel and Audio settings and select to listen the now added S/PDIF USB input. On its property page it says 2 channel 16bit 48kHz (DVD quality by default) or alternatively 44.1kHz (CD quality). Then I can play the sound back from an audio device of my choise, like the Genelecs.

On tv menu there's three settings for the optical sound output: PCM, automatic and pass through. For some reason the last one seems always grayed out and not selectable. I tried normal DVB-C viewing, which shows DD logo for the sound (without any hint to being 5.1), Youtube and paid HBO Max service by installed app. All play back fine with PCM selected. With automatic setting only Youtube plays back proper audio, others produce digital garble.

Not bad for an under eight bucks item. But what do you think does both the telly and the box pass though proper digital DD/AC3 signal? Could there be found software for PC to listen to the S/PDIF input and both decode it and play it back on selected audio device on the fly?

edit: Just by the initial expression I can say the audio will now be substantially more enjoyable should I watch a movie from a tv streaming service and play it back from those Genelecs connected to my computer, so it looks like it was worth it.
 
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