TR Forums

I have an Audigy 2ZS with a Digital Audio Out (looks like a standard stereo mini port like the rest)... I see a pin-out on the internal of the card for SPDIF, but I have no panel for it. I have a bluray player audio receiver that has SPDIF in (has the square looking connector).

My question is... Where is there a cable that would accomplish my task - getting audio from the Digital Audio out on the audigy 2zs to the blu-ray SPDIF receiver.

I'm confused. Are you trying to get optical output, or coaxial digital output? Are you trying to connect into HDMI on the receiving unit? Do you have any pics of the problem?

Also, what are you expecting to transmit over spdif? Movie/video audio? Stereo audio? Multichannel games? If the third, you need to double-check your plans...

I believe all you need is a mono 3.5mm -> RCA adapter (like this) to use coaxial digital out with the Audigy. The "square looking connector" most likely Toslink optical input, so you'll need to determine if your receiver has coaxial digital input as well. You may have to enable digital out and/or spdif passthrough in the sound card's control panel though. Keep in mind that the Audigy cards aren't ideal for using digital out, since all PCM audio gets automatically re-sampled to 48khz internally by the card, inducing a slight quality loss and circumventing bit-perfect output.

I was just gonna send the audio to my TV - I now have a Sony LCD with a VGA in and line-in audio that I'm using at the moment - haven't bought a receiver/speaker system. I think that when it comes to me getting a sound system/receiver, I'll need to either get a new soundcard that has SPDIF-toslink or get a new video card that sends audio through HDMI.

you may have to enable digital out and/or spdif passthrough in the sound card's control panel though

I have a stereo-mono to RCA converter like you mentioned and have it running to the digital (coaxial) audio in on my receiver, but it only shows 2.0 audio channels on the system... so I'm thinking that the options aren't set on the software for my Audigy 2ZS card. Problem is, I'm running Vista, and I don't see any options on setting/enabling digital-out (SPDIF).

Any help?

mattsteg wrote:

Also, what are you expecting to transmit over spdif? Movie/video audio? Stereo audio? Multichannel games? If the third, you need to double-check your plans...

Why is gaming a problem? I have X-Fi and I've set it to encode all content to DTS and to pass it through digital connection.

Multichannel games, mp3 CMSS upmixes, DVD movies, everything sounds great in 5.1. When it's not crackling and popping

crazybus wrote:

I believe all you need is a mono 3.5mm -> RCA adapter (like this) to use coaxial digital out with the Audigy. The "square looking connector" most likely Toslink optical input, so you'll need to determine if your receiver has coaxial digital input as well. You may have to enable digital out and/or spdif passthrough in the sound card's control panel though. Keep in mind that the Audigy cards aren't ideal for using digital out, since all PCM audio gets automatically re-sampled to 48khz internally by the card, inducing a slight quality loss and circumventing bit-perfect output.

This is true, I do the same myself with a coax.

Do other cards like the Xonar have true PCM pass-through?

mattsteg wrote:

Also, what are you expecting to transmit over spdif? Movie/video audio? Stereo audio? Multichannel games? If the third, you need to double-check your plans...

There is now a Dolby Digital Live Pack for all Audigy cards that allows for multi channel gaming over SPDIF. I use it and it works fine for me. It uses the CPU to do the encoding but I've never noticed any detriment to performance, I only have it active when playing games.