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Question about my current setup

D

Druneau

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 3, 2006
Messages
1,745
I'm currently using

Asus Xonar DX via Optical to Onkyo TX-SR606 to basic kef 5.1 speakers

I was looking around and it (re)occured to me that Dolby via optical is very old now and is very compressed.

The Xonar DX has somewhat ok amps for analog out. Would it be a good idea to get myself 3x 3.5mm to RCA and use "multi-chanel" analog input on the Amp instead of Optical + DD?
 
What do you use the rig for games? Is the sound bad or bad quality at the moment?
 
I usually dislike post-processing for any source material.

I mainly play games with my headphones and listen to tv/movies/music with the speakers.

I'm asking mainly because I keep fiddling with the Onkyo trying to ensure no post processing is done. And maybe it's easier when it's all analog in, analog out.

I'll probably just get the wires and try it out. It will probably end up sounding the same to me. But knowing the signal going in might be better quality will ease my mind.

(I looked around and it seems that "Dolby Digital" is limited to 640kbps. Not sure if it applies to "dolby digital live")
 
Buy the cables and try it out, not like it is going to break the bank.
Let us know if you notice any difference.
 
I too have been wondering the same thing...

I have been running an HTPC since back in the AMD K6 2 500 days... I went to digital because I got HUM on the RCA ins... but that was in my old apartment with 1960s wiring... andthat my house has 1990s wiring, I might just try it out

honestly... you need to keep this in mind... speaker output it analog... and with that in mind, NOTHING digital is going to sound all that great...
 
I ordered 3 sets of 3.5mm to twin RCA and I'll try it out.

I was listening to a FLAC file ( which I rarely do) and saw a 1mbps bitrate then I went "wait a minute.. dolby digital is 640max" lol. So technically it makes no sense to use my optical out. (pretty sure I can't tell the difference between 1000 and 640)

Hopefully using 6 analog channel input on my Onkyo allows me to lock it into "direct" mode where no post processing is done and get 5.1 sound out of it.
 
The S/PDIF on a Xonar DX can do 192KHz/24bit (two-channel), per the spec sheet. That's over 9Mbps. ;) Assuming your receiver can handle that. This exceeds the original S/PDIF specification. S/PDIF (the transport) doesn't have a max bandwidth in a conventional way. It's based on the transmitter/receiver. Newer transmitter/receivers come out, bandwidth goes up.

So, properly set-up , what you'll be doing is changing from the DACs in your receiver to the DACs in your Xonar DX. The DACs in the Xonar are probably better. But 5.1 audio from games (sent to the reciever's speakers) will probably sound quite a bit better (you're by-passing the Dolby Digital Live compression).
 
havermeyer said:
The S/PDIF on a Xonar DX can do 192KHz/24bit (two-channel), per the spec sheet. That's over 9Mbps. ;) Assuming your receiver can handle that. This exceeds the original S/PDIF specification. S/PDIF (the transport) doesn't have a max bandwidth in a conventional way. It's based on the transmitter/receiver. Newer transmitter/receivers come out, bandwidth goes up.

So, properly set-up , what you'll be doing is changing from the DACs in your receiver to the DACs in your Xonar DX. The DACs in the Xonar are probably better. But 5.1 audio from games (sent to the reciever's speakers) will probably sound quite a bit better (you're by-passing the Dolby Digital Live compression).
Click to expand...

Thanks, using the DAC on my xonar does sound like a better use of it's power. I've rechecked the specs and it seems that it only does 116db SNR on front L/R channels and 114db SNR on the other six chanels (has 7.1 out). The Onkyo on the other hand states 106db SNR. (I'm not edumacated on the effects of SNR vs. perceived sound quality, so I'll be a uninformed person and assume 116 is better than 106 lol)

I understand that S/PDIF has enough bandwidth, but it seems to all come down to Dolby Digital Live restricting the flow of information (although I haven't found any specs which tell me that it HAS to be limited to 640kbps. i.e. if a dolby digital stream at 9mbps made it to my receiver, would it, a - explode and burn down the house or b - play it badly or not at all)
 
EricFX1984 said:
honestly... you need to keep this in mind... speaker output it analog... and with that in mind, NOTHING digital is going to sound all that great...
Click to expand...
The sound is always converted from digital to analog. The only difference is where that conversion happens. Switching to analog soundcard outputs means the card will be doing the conversion, whereas using a digital output will mean the receiver does it. Which option is better depends on which device has better DACs.
 
Like many things electronic, it all comes down to how much you trust the data sheet until you try it yourself. :D At work we once found that the data sheet for a hall effect sensor was wrong. It was like telling a room full of kids Santa Claus wasn't real.:eek: I wouldn't expect much of a difference unless something isn't working correctly.

Dolby Digital over S/PDIF is 640Kbps, so Dolby Digital Live should be the same.

Two-channel audio is where you can still get higher quality uncompressed PCM over S/PDIF. There's just no way to send uncompressed multi-channel audio over S/PDIF.

Personally, I don't spend too much time worrying about multi-channel speaker quality (I was ruined by working with Aachen Head binaural recordings over Stax Lambda "earspeakers". Try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FwDa7TWHHc for a binaural demo). Maybe when the Flaming Lips finally release a DVD-audio version of Zaireeka.
 
Well I got my wires today. Plugged them in. And the manual control I now get over is what I expected/wanted.

With the amp in "multichannel mode" it doesn't do any DSP. If I play a 2.0 flac the crossover for the LFE isn't even active hehe. I have to get the software to create a LFE channel and output it (either sound driver or in the player).

Pretty good stuff for me. I wasn't able to test games yet since my second OCZ SSD decided to die.
 
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