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S/PIDF Sound Card Question

D

Dinkel

Gawd
Joined
Jun 15, 2000
Messages
1,011
I am thinkg about upgrading from my Klipsch v.2-400(with the new pre-amp) to a set of Logitech Z-680s. I have a Fortissimo II sound card, 4.1 S/PIDF in/out and the normal analog cables. If I were to buy the z-680s would I need a new sound card if I hooked it up via S/PIDF? Is the 5.1 done in the decoder of the speakers and not matter if the sound card is 4.1? Or do I need a new sound card?

Thanks!
 
You may or may not need a new sound card. It depends on what you plan to use it for. The x.1 labeling on sound cards denotes how many speakers it can directly drive.

Spdif is spdif. Spdif is usually 2ch pcm audio. For DVDs, 5.1/6.1/7.1 is done by using compression, either encoded to Dolby Digital or DTS. But the only sound solution that can encode to DD on the fly is the Nforce2 APU. All other cards just pass on a 2ch pcm signal for all regular audio or pass on the AC3/DTS signal from DVDs/HDTV/etc (called spdif passthrough on sound cards, since no processing is done). The only way to get multichannel audio from non-encoded source is to use the analog cables or have an Nforce2 board to encode to DD.

So if you're watching dvds you'll get multichannel using spdif. But all other audio will be 2ch stereo, unless you use the analog cables to hear multichannel audio in games using EAX/multichannel WMA9/etc. In that case, you'll need a new 5.1/6.1/7.1 sound card.

To sum things up:
DVD watching = no new card
5.1 game playing = new card
Watching WMV-HD = new card
 
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