I love this sound card that i use, however i was hoping that a new version was going to come out that supported HDMI sound without needing the video connected. When i look around i find this product is EOL. Im like WTF, why would Asus stop making the best (IMO) sound card available. Is it limited market? or do they have an updated one on the cards? Asus website isnt the easiest to get support and repairs (if required ) in the UK, so im hoping the card will noot fail me. I looked at the slim version, but it is very limited compared to the Deluxe. So is there any feedback etc on the situ? Also how many other users are liking this card?. I intend to shortly get an HDMI amp to test that part for bluray audio etc. Yes i know analog output works for bluray audio, but its got hdmi also and i wanted to test it out. Thanks. Opps title says 1.2, i mean 1.3 The Funky
The thing is - most people who are bitstreaming audio (me included) will just pass audio out of the HDMI of their AMD graphics card. My two HTPCs (and countless builds that I've done for others over the last few years) pass encoded audio, straight from the Blu-ray media, out of the HDMI socket and into the amp. The HDAV cards, by my understanding, were only in existence 'cos nothing would pass proper 7.1 bitstream audio (the cards available didn't support HDMI 1.3). The benefit of these cards was two-fold - the ability to output bitstream audio via HDMI, and also decent DACs to output multichannel audio. BUT - now - the HDMI sound card is a bit of a dying market. Graphics cards as cheap as the 5450 will output un-messed-with audio to a receiver ready for decoding. No DACs required, nothing. Unfortunately, yes (by my understanding), it's a dying, if not already dead, market. It's a shame, though...
Ok, this indeed does make sense then. My gfx card also will do that i must admit. Infact that was probably the reason my spdif kept dropping out as was a conflict with the gfx card and sound card (alsorted now with later driver , which is nice. Its probably just a Pseudo thing now, but cant help feeling that the sound card would do it better. I guess digital through is digital through though. Also its nice to have a card that does the lot, whether you use it or not. Im wondering how the pass through in a non HD res like 1920*1200 will confuse the amp? When an amp is 4k passthrough, does it mean that it will passthrough any res upto 4k, or does it mean only: 1080 4k specific resolutions? I can set my res to 1080, but i prefer 1200 pixel TBH. Would a gfx card only passthrough hdmi though? I think my soundcard not only pass through hdmi, but allows normal gaming in 7.1 via hdmi cable aswell as bitstreamed bluray etc etc. I have been messing also with optical output and DDL, its a shame that DDL doesent support 7.1 and only 5.1 though. Is DDL limited to 5.1, maybe it can support 7.1? It seems more and more amps are loosing the separate multichannel inputs (my current amp does do this though) and its likely and amp that decodes is more common now.
