Questions regarding 5.1 audio.

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Maxx2008

n00b
Joined
Jan 11, 2008
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So, I have an M-Audio Audiophile USB sound card connected with a passive 5.1 speaker system. The amp is set to "Theater" and is plugged in to the Analog Out jacks in my sound card. But there is also an S/PDIF out jack there. Should I connect it to that instead? Manual says it's specifically for 5.1 audio. Does that mean the Analog jacks are only for Stereo and not for 5.1? Can I still get 5.1 using Analog?

The reason I'm asking this is because sometimes I want to switch the amp to my onboard sound card because some games don't seem to really like my M-Audio card. And my onboard card doesn't have an S/PDIF jack.
 
the analog jacks can be used for 5.1 if you use the appropriate mixing (and obviously having everything connected correctly), such as EAX or 5.1 from the source (probably pre-encoded DVD). If you're using SPDIF, it'll only output 5.1 to your receiver if you have a pre-encoded source (5.1 DVD), otherwise it'll output stereo. The main difference in those two when a 5.1 source is concerned, is who does the decoding from the source. If you're using the analog: then the sound card and software decodes it. If you're using SPDIF, then the receiver decodes it.
 
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