Hi all, First of all I want to say this forum is great, and want to thank all of you for your great advice so far. I have another question, regarding an Audigy Platinum card and an external Dolby digital amplifier. Will the Audigy connect digitally into an external amp. Would I get the full 5.1 this way? And what connections would I need on the amplifier and how would I hook this up to the sound card or to the Live Drive? Thanks again all for being so helpful to the clueless Jonester
You would need a Dolby Digital 5.1 Amp with S/PDIF digital input. Connect that to the S/PDIF output on the audigy drive or the S/PDIF connector on the back of the card. That will give you the best possible quality and full 5.1 channel output.
Do you know what kind of cable I would need to connect it to the back of the card. I know that going into the amp would be RCA, but isn't the output on the card a mini phono plug. I've never seen a cable like that anywhere. Do you know where to get one? Thanks.
I do not....As far as I'm aware, Creative supply one (miniplug -RCA Phono), but I'm not sure of this.
Yes, an adapter should have come with the Audigy. Most likely it is identical to the one that came with my SB Live! Platinum; mini-phono jack on one end and splits to a female RCA connector and a female Digital-DIN connector (looks like a PS/2 with far too many holes.)
I just looked at the manual and it looks like they don't supply that cable with the Audigy Maybe somebody sells an RCA to mini plug adapter. I guess I could always go through the live drive but it would be nicer if I could hide the wires in the back.
tis very easy to hook up your soundcard to a dolby digital 5.1 amplifier....i did some resarch into it, and for about 4 months i was hoping with some kind of cable, adaptor i would be able to hook it up from the back of the soundcard....i wrote to creative but they didnt know either....so i took the easy solution which works perfectly....go to your local hifi store and buy an optical cable in the lenght u need, but make sure the plug is round so it will fit onto your live drive, plug it into your live drive, into the back of the amp, make sure the amp is on automatic decoding, and voila 5.1 sound on your surround sound setup....got mine hooked up to my 280w main speakers....hmmmm
The flip side is that generally S/PDIF will provide better sound quality than an optical cable, because the implementations of the TOSLINK optical system are often very poor (Even on a £500 CD player they're poor compared to the S/PDIF output). However, many people would not notice the difference.
hmm sounds like isaac knows what hes talkin about....well if you are talking that kinda money (i work in a specialist hifi shop) we tested it out and on our B&W Nautilus flagship speakers which retail at $35 000 we found that using the normal RCA interconnects the from the transport to the dac to the preamp to the poweramp all at about 1grand each, sounded a lot better then the s/pdif....we then did a test in home cinema setup, which is where you would use an optical and a spdif, and the sound that is produced is a lot more defined and clearer yet clinical, which you put as poor....in hifi that might be the case but as most people use 5.1 for cinema it is just what you want as it clears up your tweeter for a better more defined bass....
can i borrow your BW speakers, well not borrow, but have them. pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Nope. I have the Series ones, and from when they were seriously hot items (I bought them in feb 1996). Run them off a Marantz PM 66SE, which is ok (my previous Pioneer A-103 REALLY struggled with them), linked up to the oldest component, a Marantz CD63 (which I bought in oct 95). Anyway, there's nothing there crying out for an upgrade (although I still kick myself for not buying the Audio Alchemy Digital Decoding Engine 3.0 while I had the chance), and I have no money now either.
i have a audigy hooked upto a sony amp with 5.2 support and i didnt use sp/diff or what eva its called and i get full 5.1-5.2 sound so can u imangine playing those really good games on a grundig widescreen digital tv with my sony amp 5.2 surround and the best thing is my AMD 2ghz never gets to hot or to cold seen as my case is water cooled gforce 3 saving for gf4 ( yipee two more weeks of work ) all the best mods 1128mb ram and all the mula to get it all was from crissy 25th and my bday 12th of jan total of computer just under 3grand none of the oem parts btw i get alot of money from my 2 aunts coz they try to be then the other
