Building a PC - question about digital output

[habman6]

I am building a PC and plan on hooking it up to a receiver/speakers to act as the sound output. However, in terms of digital audio out, if the motherboard has a digital audio out (I assume via S/PDIF) then is there any need for a dedicated sound card? I mean, digital output is digital output, correct? And also, I assume I would have to disable any encoding done by the onboard sound/media players?

I have never using a stereo system for PC audio output - should I expect "adequate" sound quality?

Thanks

 

[jinjuku]

I am building a PC and plan on hooking it up to a receiver/speakers to act as the sound output. However, in terms of digital audio out, if the motherboard has a digital audio out (I assume via S/PDIF) then is there any need for a dedicated sound card? I mean, digital output is digital output, correct? And also, I assume I would have to disable any encoding done by the onboard sound/media players?

I have never using a stereo system for PC audio output - should I expect "adequate" sound quality?

Thanks

Correct. Digital output will be decoded by the receiver. It is simply a bitstream. If sending out over the S/PDIF the computer won't apply any encoding. So no need to worry on that count.

 

[Joeteck]

I am building a PC and plan on hooking it up to a receiver/speakers to act as the sound output. However, in terms of digital audio out, if the motherboard has a digital audio out (I assume via S/PDIF) then is there any need for a dedicated sound card? I mean, digital output is digital output, correct? And also, I assume I would have to disable any encoding done by the onboard sound/media players?

I have never using a stereo system for PC audio output - should I expect "adequate" sound quality?

Thanks

Correct, However, just because it has digital out does not mean it will do Dolby 5.1 or better. Some just do optical 2 channel... But if your audio chipset is a realtek 889a this can do Dolby digital live and DTS interactive for PC games and Dolby digital 5.1/7.1 for DVD's..

Joe

 

[habman6]

Great, thanks a bunch. I have another question in terms of connectivity - I spent all day researching yesterday and I HOPE I have this right.

From the advice of another member, by best bet is for some studio monitors+sub to be powered by amps with an active crossover system. However, I believe I would need a DAC to take in the digital signal from the motherboard and convert it, correct?

So would the setup be: PC Motherboard digital out --> DAC --> Crossover --> Amp --> Monitors/Sub

In terms of connectivity type, alot of the crossovers I have seen use XLR. Is this something I have to consider when looking at amps, or are adaptors good enough to convert the connection?

 

[Sheep]

If you're using a receiver, if has it's own built in amps and DACs. Personally, I would go this route, far less expensive, and still sounds good.

I would look into what kind of encoding your onboard digital out can do. My old computer used an NF2 Mobo, which had built in on the fly Dolby Digital encoding. It was really nice, and is the exact reason that computer is in the HT room again (that and Firewire).

SheepStar

 

[s162216]

If you're using a receiver, if has it's own built in amps and DACs. Personally, I would go this route, far less expensive, and still sounds good.

I would look into what kind of encoding your onboard digital out can do. My old computer used an NF2 Mobo, which had built in on the fly Dolby Digital encoding. It was really nice, and is the exact reason that computer is in the HT room again (that and Firewire).

SheepStar

I still use one of those motherboards with the Nvidia Soundstorm simply because no soundcard has ever beaten it in terms of quality - every individual one was tested by Dolby Labs before being sold - the Dolby Digital encoding is also so useful, no having to switch between analogue and digital when I want to watch DVD's or play games.

Pity Nvidia discontinued it, not enough people used the digital out apparently. I do hope the rumored 7.1 soundcard version of it does come out some day as more people are connecting digitally these days.

 

[Yamaheart]

I also have a question, I have a Creative Extreme X-Fi card. It has a digital output. I believed this is a Mono Minijack 3.5 mm right? If i just hook up this to my reciever, then what is or where S/PDIF comes in? Thanks

 

[s162216]

I also have a question, I have a Creative Extreme X-Fi card. It has a digital output. I believed this is a Mono Minijack 3.5 mm right? If i just hook up this to my reciever, then what is or where S/PDIF comes in? Thanks

The S/PDIF is the digital output, the 3.5 mm jacks are for analogue audio that the soundcard has got from decoding the digital sound from a DVD for instance. The S/PDIF is an RCA socket usually coloured orange.
If you have a reciever, connect it up via the S/PDIF, but be warned that games, downloaded music etc are not mixed in digital, so unless your soundcard has Dolby Digital Live encoding availiable, then you will have to plug it into your reciever through the analogue surround passthrough, by the 8 or 6 analogue jacks on your soundcard, except when playing CD's or DVD's which have digital sound. This is because games are encoded in a format the reciever does not understand, so the soundcard has to do the decoding, although some such as Battlefront II are encoded in Dolby Digital

What reciever have you got? Does ity have analogue passthrough?

 

[Yamaheart]

The S/PDIF is the digital output, the 3.5 mm jacks are for analogue audio that the soundcard has got from decoding the digital sound from a DVD for instance. The S/PDIF is an RCA socket usually coloured orange.
If you have a reciever, connect it up via the S/PDIF, but be warned that games, downloaded music etc are not mixed in digital, so unless your soundcard has Dolby Digital Live encoding availiable, then you will have to plug it into your reciever through the analogue surround passthrough, by the 8 or 6 analogue jacks on your soundcard, except when playing CD's or DVD's which have digital sound. This is because games are encoded in a format the reciever does not understand, so the soundcard has to do the decoding, although some such as Battlefront II are encoded in Dolby Digital

What reciever have you got? Does ity have analogue passthrough?

I have the Yamaha RX-V3800. My PC has the Creative Sound Blaster X-fi Extreme Music, it has 1 digital out, and 3 Minijack outs as 5.1 or 6.1 or maybe 7.1. Currently I only use 1 jack out as stereo/main to my receiver. I was looking up creative website and they have this cable set for multichanels. I believe my reciver is able to do multichanel. So I have to look up the manual and see. Thanks man.

 

[Djizasse]

You can use multi channel analog out (3 cables) and connect then to your receiver's multichannel analog in.
Another option is to enable DDL (Dolby Digital Live) in your card. That will encode the sounds in games and applications to 5.1 digital. Then you would just connect coaxial out on the card to coaxial in on the receiver.

Soundblaster.com sells the DDL activation pack, just search for DDL pack. If that does not work, get the Daniel_k drivers, they're actually more stable than the creative ones.

 

[Yamaheart]

You can use multi channel analog out (3 cables) and connect then to your receiver's multichannel analog in.
Another option is to enable DDL (Dolby Digital Live) in your card. That will encode the sounds in games and applications to 5.1 digital. Then you would just connect coaxial out on the card to coaxial in on the receiver.

Soundblaster.com sells the DDL activation pack, just search for DDL pack. If that does not work, get the Daniel_k drivers, they're actually more stable than the creative ones.

thanks a bunch man....

 

[samhfoley]

Let me get this right....so whatever sound card I buy for my HTPC is OK as long as it has a digital out and is going through my Onkyo TX-SA607 which will then decode the audio? Even Dolby® TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio™?? That would save me the $$ from having to invest in the XONAR HDAV 1.3 card.

 

[Ben_in_COSpring]

Let me get this right....so whatever sound card I buy for my HTPC is OK as long as it has a digital out and is going through my Onkyo TX-SA607 which will then decode the audio? Even Dolby® TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio™?? That would save me the $$ from having to invest in the XONAR HDAV 1.3 card.

I believe that S/PDIF doesn't have sufficient BW to support those codecs, so you will have to go over hdmi.

If you're on Windows then you probably have other DRM issues imposed on you by your friends at Microsoft that may further prevent you from outputting those codecs without forced downsampling or forced downmixing. Perhaps a Windows user can comment on this.

MPlayer and FFMPEG advertise support for all of these on Linux, but I have not yet tried them so I can't comment on how well they work.

 

[s162216]

Let me get this right....so whatever sound card I buy for my HTPC is OK as long as it has a digital out and is going through my Onkyo TX-SA607 which will then decode the audio? Even Dolby® TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio™?? That would save me the $$ from having to invest in the XONAR HDAV 1.3 card.

You need HDMI to output those formats, HDPC which says what can and can't use HD video/sound does not allow it over anything except HDMI 1.3. I presume that if you want to decode them you are watching blu ray, be mindful that your monitor and graphics card must also be HDCP compatiable if its over HDMI or on some DVI. If its not then quality is downgraded to DVD and the sound to CD quality.

S/PDIF does not have enough bandwidth to take the full 6, 7 or 8 channels of HD sound formats, even if it has been decoded to PCM. You can sort of cheat though, win or powerdvd can downsample the truehd or master to stereo PCM which can be sent over S/PDIF and then you can either leave it like that or apply Dolby Pro Logic to get surround again (although if you the sencond option you might as well just use Dolby Digital or DTS as you won't be getting full quality discrete sound)

I would get the Asus Zonar if I were you and if your graphics card does not support HDMI and HDCP, a new graphics card as practically all cards from the last year or so support it.

 

[samhfoley]

Thanks for the explanation. Looks like I am going to have to bite the bullet and shell out the money for the Xonar although it looks like the first stepping stone of new technology that will likely become better and cheaper when more models hit the market.

 

[s162216]

Thanks for the explanation. Looks like I am going to have to bite the bullet and shell out the money for the Xonar although it looks like the first stepping stone of new technology that will likely become better and cheaper when more models hit the market.

The technology is actually nothing new, ithe Zonar just that it has a lot of features that most people proberly will not use, some of the features you could use in a professional recording studio.
Not many soundcards are HDCP compatiable, even if they have HDMI, so at the moment Asus are able to charge quite a bit as they are part of a select group that sell soundcards able to do all these new features.

 

[Joeteck]

Thanks for the explanation. Looks like I am going to have to bite the bullet and shell out the money for the Xonar although it looks like the first stepping stone of new technology that will likely become better and cheaper when more models hit the market.

X-fi does not do Dolby digital 5.1 over any digital output... It will be Stereo over optical. Get away from creative... Creative is much better at analog output... and proprietary EAX, and would give give you 7.1...

HT claro is your best bet.... Or anything with the C-Media CMI8788 chipset...

good luck..