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Siba
02-10-2006, 12:26 AM
Hello everyone. I recently ordered a pair of 170SEs for my room, and a Panny XR55 to go along with. My main use for it will be music, movies, and games from my PC. However, the Panny does not have the 3.5mm stereo jacks that are the only outputs from my Audigy 2 soundcard.

Aside from getting the breakout box for the Audigy 2, is there anything else I can do? Maybe some type cable/adapter? I'm trying to keep everything up to the speakers themselves completely digital. I do have a splitter for the 3.5mm stereo > L/R analog that could go into the reciever, but I was hoping to be able to use the digital out for quality purposes, as well as convenience (using the splitter would mean I'd have to reach to the back of my computer every time I needed to use headphones).

It seems to me that I might be looking for a standard digital coax cable that has the two ends needed, but I'm not entirely sure about this.

Also, what kind of options do I have for wiring the speakers to the reciever itself? From reading around a little, most people seem to recommend the OFC cable. I would need about 20 feet of it total, is the cable on the Ascend website good or should I look elsewhere (where if so)?

Any input appreciated, thanks in advance.

bikeman
02-10-2006, 03:53 AM
However, the Panny does not have the 3.5mm stereo jacks that are the only outputs from my Audigy 2 soundcard.
Aside from getting the breakout box for the Audigy 2, is there anything else I can do? Maybe some type cable/adapter? I'm trying to keep everything up to the speakers themselves completely digital. I do have a splitter for the 3.5mm stereo > L/R analog that could go into the reciever, but I was hoping to be able to use the digital out for quality purposes, as well as convenience (using the splitter would mean I'd have to reach to the back of my computer every time I needed to use headphones).
I don't believe you can output a digital signal from a mini-jack. It sounds like, and I could be wrong, you need a new sound card that outputs a digital signal.

David

sensibull
02-10-2006, 06:56 AM
I don't believe you can output a digital signal from a mini-jack.

Not true. Apparently what you need Siba is a 3.5" mono (mini-jack) > RCA cable. But the Creative drivers make things a little difficult. There's a big thread on this (http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/5/1656.html) over at ecoustics.com. Here's the most pertinent post. Hope this helps.

"In reference to the original poster, to hook up a SB audigy card to an amplify using the digital output, you just need a cable with an RCA plug on one end, and an 1/8” (3.5mm) mono plug on the other. This cable is usually quit easy to find. You can buy them at dollar atores, audio shops, or can usually find adapters that convert an RCA plug to the 3.5mm jack. The cable itself is pretty much not that important, as digital signals are less prone to “noise”, however severe degradation will result in spotty digital data, and therefore broken sound, so a really crappy cable might cause problems. You can use a coaxial cable, video cable, audio cable, whatever you want to call it, but as long as the physical ends are as mentioned, you are in business. That is the good news.

Now, the bad news. For those of you hoping to hook up your nice fancy sound cards to your nice fancy amplifiers and speaker system, and get all the latest goodies without changing settings/cables etc, forget it. You are SOL. * special case exception. This is not to say that things won’t work, it just means that there is not ONE setup, that will get you everything. This is due to the goofy way these sound cards are set up. Even though your amplifiers may support several different audio signal inputs, and the sound card can also support several different signals, the current implementation won’t allow all your gear to play nice.

If you simply want to get digital audio (5.1), using the above cable, make sure you change your sound card settings to use digital output only(find it yourself), make sure AC3 encoding on your Sb is on (another word for Digital), and make sure you set it up for two speakers (yes, two). If you try to set it to a 5.1 speaker system, you will only get the left and right audio. This is caused by stupid drivers that assume that if you have selected any more than 2 speakers, you must be using the SB as the digital decoder, and outputs the signals via the independent speaker outputs on the card, even though you have specified digital output. The end result is, with the above settings (you might have to tweak your independent configuration) you will get Dolby Digital 5.1 from your sound card, into your amplifier, and it will sound great. However, because you need to set your sound card up as a 2 speaker (stereo) configuration, your computer games will not play in surround modes properly, simply stereo. Few games (if any) support dolby digital, so you will just have to listen to them in stereo. That means Doom 3 is stereo only. Sorry.

* exception. Two possible ways around this, are, to forget about using your amplifier as the Digital decoder, and to hook up the SB card outputs to you amplifier using the individual channel inputs, ie front to front, center to center, rear to rear. If you are lucky your amplifier can do this, and in this case, you turn your sound card digital output off, select a 5.1 speaker setup, and you will hear your movies in 5.1 dolby digital, AND your computer games will also play in surround modes. Of course, for purists, there will be an audio degradation as you will be sending an analog (converted from digital by your sound card) signal to your amp instead of a digital one, and the wiring is much uglier. Plus, you will have to use the SB software to adjust levels, sub cutoff, etc. it also may limit what other gear you can plug into your amplifier as all of the inputs may be used. But it does work. The second, as mentioned by another poster, is to spend gobs of money on a seperate digiatl encoder, and feed your sound card signals into it, then into your amp.

The solution to this, would be if the sound card converted non digital signals (including surround modes) and converted them to dolby digital. Then, you could have it all, but I have not yet found a card that can do this, maybe some day. "

swank121
02-10-2006, 08:29 AM
Goodness! I think we are making this way more complicated than it is. From your post, Siba, it appears you only have a stereo setup. I am currently using an Audigy 2 sound card in my HTPC hooked up to an H/K AVR-635 with no problems.

Assuming you have a receiver that can decode PCM as well as Dolby Digital and DTS (and switches on the fly) you CAN connect the digital out from the Audigy 2 straight into the digital input on your receiver and have full surround sound. It is true that the Audigy 2 (or any other PC sound card for that matter with the interesting exception of the nForce2 SoundStorm onboard sound) will not generate a Dolby Digital stream. HOWEVER, it will pass through an existing Dolby Digital stream with no problem (like from a DVD or AC3 file). In order for this to work you must set your sound card for digital output only, 2 speakers, and Dolby Digital decoding on SPDIF passthrough.

Games will be stereo only since they do not create a Dolby Digital signal. If you can live with this, you will have a pure digital connection with surround sound in movies, without any cable swapping or driver nonsense.

It should be noted that the problems pointed out in the ecoustics thread are present with ANY PC sound card, not just the Audigy.

One last point about the cable .. I tried a simple stereo minijack to RCA mono adapter with my Audigy 2 digital output and it didn't work. I had to use a minijack->RCA splitter (like the one you have) and connect only the LEFT channel to the receiver. I'm also using the cheapest RCA cables WalMart carried with no degradation in sound. :D

As for speaker wire, my belief is that wire is wire. Nearly all copper speaker wire is OFC even if it isn't labelled as such (the oxygen-free part is a byproduct of the iron removal process) For your short run, just use the cheapest 18 gauge you can find. Home Depot carries some great value speaker wire.

sensibull
02-10-2006, 08:50 AM
Thanks for the clarification, swank, but if you read the thread excerpt carefully you'll see that you and the quoted poster are saying the same thing. It only gets complicated if you want to preserve surround for gaming...

... and FWIW, I am not an Audigy user. I use a Chaintech AV-710 that is not only a hell of a lot cheaper, but also offers bit-perfect output and automatic switching between 44.1 and 48kHz sources.

Siba
02-10-2006, 09:43 AM
Wow, you guys really dug into this. As far as the Audigy drivers go.......I have actually read about this problem before. I never thought I'd live to see the day I really cared about it, though :)

The solution as I have read is to get a motherboard with the Nvidia SoundStorm on-board audio, one that will encode into a Dolby Digital signal through hardware and output it through SPDIF. Here is the Nvidia page on it: http://www.nvidia.com/object/feature_soundstorm.html

I'm considering getting one of these mobos, as I'm currently using the Nforce2 chipset anyway....

Let me know what you guys think of SoundStorm, as it's not planned to keep the hardware Dolby Digital ability in any of the current (Nforce4) motherboards, and has already been scrapped. Maybe we could get some kind of petition up....though there probably is already one. If that's the case I'd like to renew interest in seeing the petition through ;)

Siba
02-10-2006, 09:50 AM
Wow, looked around a bit and boards with SoundStorm on them are nowhere to be found :(

sensibull
02-10-2006, 10:00 AM
The solution as I have read is to get a motherboard with the Nvidia SoundStorm on-board audio, one that will encode into a Dolby Digital signal through hardware and output it through SPDIF. Here is the Nvidia page on it: http://www.nvidia.com/object/feature_soundstorm.html

Pretty sure any of the new cards with Dolby Digital Live (http://www.dolby.com/consumer/technology/dolby_live.html) (such as theXPlosion (http://www.bluegears.com/xplosion.html)) will offer the same functionality as the SoundStorm.

So you must be a gamer, huh? Because otherwise, none of this stuff matters...

swank121
02-10-2006, 10:27 AM
My mistake, sensibull. I read too much into it. From a quick glance it seems they are making a mountain out of a molehill!

Check out the new Dolby Digital Live cards based on the CMedia CMI8768+.
http://www.cmedia.com.tw/product/CMI8768_plus.htm

They do the exact same thing as DICE on the SoundStorm.

Two retail examples:

http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/soundcards/mtgoddl/specs.asp
http://www.bluegears.com/xmystique.html

If you don't want to drop another $100 on a soundcard, do what I did and hook your Audigy2 up with both digital and analog connections. This has the added benefit of allowing DVD-Audio playback!


edit: bah, sensibull you are too fast! :D

Siba
02-10-2006, 01:21 PM
OK, here's what I've run across for now

This issue is apparently bigger than I thought it was at first, and I'm not the only one that has it. Never thought I'd be in this position.. ;)

My mobo right now is an ASUS A7N8X deluxe. It has a Coax SPDIF output on the backplane. I looked at the mobo box and it DOES have the Nvidia SoundStorm and Dolby Digital logos (suhweet!!!).

Another option is this:
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4052914#productTabDe tails
(thanks sensibull and swank)

This card has the ability to encode a Dolby Digital signal in realtime, but would cost me another $100. Can anyone with this card comment on the audio quality and possibly how good the card is for gaming?

I have also considered getting a Creative X-Fi platinum series card. They have only a passthrough option for toslink as far as I know, but my friend said there was a noticeable difference in sound quality compared to his old Audigy.
Would skipping over Dolby Digital entirely, unless it was part of the source material, be a better option in lieu of better sound from the soundcard itself? Does anyone have one of these cards that can maybe add in their opinion? This option would set me back a good $170 at a minimum, which is halfway to another pair of 170SEs. I considered this route because I'd either be using headphones or just the 170SEs I have on the way in anyway, so there's not really much reason for me to want 5.1 sound...

Hmmm....anyone up to sway my opinion for the better? :confused:

linecircle
02-10-2006, 01:38 PM
Just from what I've read:
Since you have Dolby Digital Live Encoding on your chipset, then you can just use the digital out on your mobo to the receiver. Not sure what the settings would be, but all your surround can be encoded to DD5.1 and output digital. (ie. it's all good)

Quite fortunate really, because later nvidia chipsets lost the DD encoding :(

swank121
02-10-2006, 03:57 PM
I used that exact motherboard (A7N8X Deluxe) in my HTPC before I upgraded late last year. The sound quality is very good, and you have the Dolby Digital encoding feature already. I wish I could have used SoundStorm in my current setup, but I upgraded to an Intel box. I had an extra Audigy 2 lying around, so that's where it went. It was not my first choice, but it does the job.

I have the Creative X-Fi Platinum sound card in my main PC, and I can honestly say the quality is greatly improved over the Audigy 2. Worth every penny. If you game with headphones at all, I would strongly suggest buying the X-Fi immediately! I have never heard better 3D positioning through headphones than with this card. I used to game exclusively with a 5.1 Klipsch ProMedia system, using expensive Sennheiser HD-595 headphones only for music. I hated losing the 5.1 experience when gaming. Once I got this card things have changed, and I now game almost exclusively with headphones! Keeps the wife happier and the volume where I like it .. :D I feel more immersed in the game with headphones and the X-Fi card than I do with a dedicated 5.1 setup.

Sorry if you are still confused. :) Only you can decide what fits your situation the best. If money is an issue, I would use the nForce2 sound for now and get the X-Fi with your next upgrade. By then it will be cheaper and you can still have great sound now.

You can't go wrong with the X-Fi either. It doesn't have Dolby Digital Live, but if you are running stereo it won't matter.

BTW, you have already made the best decision with the 170SE's .. they are great speakers!

Siba
02-10-2006, 04:31 PM
Hmm....so you're saying I should use my Soundstorm over the Audigy 2, swank?
How does the quality compare between the two?

At this point it seems like I would eventually like to get an X-Fi, but I'm a slight bit confused as to what exactly I'll lose in terms of future expandability with the loss of the DDL encoding. In the future I might get more speakers so that I'll have a 5.1 system, and in that case I think I would still be relying on having a 5.1 source (eg, a DVD with it) to get the full use of my system because of the Platinum's functionality being limited to a passthrough.

To sum things up, for the time being, should I use the DDL on my soundstorm exclusively, and hook the headphones up to the reciever whenever I need them? Would this (because of the DDL being there) allow me to listen to everything in 5.1 Dolby in the case that I get more speakers later on down the road?

Or should I stick with the digital out on the Audigy 2, buy a 3.5mm to RCA adapter, and input to the reciever through that?

I have also heard that I can use a standard 3.5mm Stereo > L/R RCA splitter, and just plug in my RCA cable to the mono(white or left) channel on the splitter and the Digital Coax input on my reciever?

Once again, tremendous thanks for everyone's help and input. I greatly appreciate it :D

p.s. one last thing, since I'm using the 170SEs without a sub, I should set the reciever settings to Large speakers and no sub, correct? Is there anything else I should do on that aside from fiddling with the eq and selecting the correct input? I have a Panasonic XR55

swank121
02-10-2006, 05:36 PM
Firingsquad wrote a very in-depth comparison between the Audigy 2 and SoundStorm. They even used the A7N8X.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/audigy2_versus_nforce2/default.asp

When comparing digital outputs, the nForce2 rolled off the bass significantly. You can likely compensate for this with your receiver, but it's definitely not as good as the Audigy2. The Audigy 2 card also supports 24bit/96khz digital output, where SoundStorm does not.

I liked SoundStorm solely for the Dolby Interactive Content Encoding since I game quite a bit in my home theater. Since I lost DICE, I am using an H/K AVR-635 connected to my Audigy2 through the preamp inputs and digitally (minijack to RCA), so I can switch to the analog connection for gaming and DVD audio.

I would say stick with the Audigy2 digital out until you get a 5.1 system, then either use SoundStorm or upgrade to a DDL card. Since your receiver doesn't have preamp inputs, an X-Fi card would not be a good idea for future expandability.

Siba
02-10-2006, 05:48 PM
What do you mean by Preamp inputs? Is that another term for 3.5mm jacks, like the signal coming out of the soundcard is unamplified?

swank121
02-11-2006, 09:42 AM
What do you mean by Preamp inputs? Is that another term for 3.5mm jacks, like the signal coming out of the soundcard is unamplified?

A receiver with preamp inputs has line level (usually RCA, not 3.5mm) inputs for each speaker. For example, on my 7.1 H/K AVR-635 I have 8 RCA inputs on the back of the receiver, one for each channel. If I choose, I can tell the receiver to use these 8 RCA inputs, basically bypassing all the processing the receiver does and only using the amp portion.

See the left side in about the middle:
http://manuals.harman.com/HK/QuickStart%20Guide/AVR635RearPanel.pdf

This allows a full surround analog connection to my Audigy 2 using cables like these:

http://www.soundblaster.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=16&product=14309

Since your receiver doesn't feature preamp inputs, you wouldn't be able to get full surround sound with an analog connection, only stereo or prologic.

Siba
02-11-2006, 12:02 PM
Setup now with Digital 3.5mm output going to a 3.5mm to L/R RCA splitter, white plug going into the digital input on the reciever via Digital Coax

Thanks for all your help :)

bikeman
02-18-2006, 07:46 AM
I use a Chaintech AV-710 that is not only a hell of a lot cheaper, but also offers bit-perfect output and automatic switching between 44.1 and 48kHz sources.
I just installed the 710. I am one very happy camper. I only use my PC for two channel so I can't speak to other uses. I'm using kernel streaming in foobar 2000.
Replaces a Xitel Pro HiFi-Link. I was pleased with the Xitel but it upsamples everything to 48khz and there was no way around it.
Thanks, Sens.

David

sensibull
02-18-2006, 09:10 AM
I am one very happy camper.

Glad to hear it. The VIA drivers can be a bit tricky (read: buggy), so let me know if you run into any problems. I've had the notion for a while now of creating a "Best Bang for Your Buck" website with links to all sorts of products. You can bet the 710 and Ascends (and probably your Panny) would be among the first on the list...

linecircle
02-21-2006, 12:02 PM
Call me value-oriented but that is exactly my setup :)
AV710, XR55, plain 12 gauge, Ascends+Hsu

Ad-Rok
02-28-2006, 09:21 AM
Glad to hear it. The VIA drivers can be a bit tricky (read: buggy), so let me know if you run into any problems. I've had the notion for a while now of creating a "Best Bang for Your Buck" website with links to all sorts of products. You can bet the 710 and Ascends (and probably your Panny) would be among the first on the list...

You read my mind. I posted something here to this effect, hoping that my HTPC and home theater "recipe" might help others along the way. I need to put this up on a web page or something, but for now:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7215348&&#post7215348

If you guys want to follow my efforts to get bit-perfect audio using Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, it's here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7200938&&#post7200938

Best,
Adam

pappekak
02-28-2006, 12:56 PM
Adam - have you tried MythTV along with MS MCE 2005? I've been thinking about building a HTPC but haven't decided with route to go. My biggest concern is being able to rip VHS and DVDs I already own to a hard drive. I think I read that MCE prevents a person from ripping DVDs.

Siba
05-08-2006, 03:19 PM
I used that exact motherboard (A7N8X Deluxe) in my HTPC before I upgraded late last year. The sound quality is very good, and you have the Dolby Digital encoding feature already. I wish I could have used SoundStorm in my current setup, but I upgraded to an Intel box. I had an extra Audigy 2 lying around, so that's where it went. It was not my first choice, but it does the job.

I have the Creative X-Fi Platinum sound card in my main PC, and I can honestly say the quality is greatly improved over the Audigy 2. Worth every penny. If you game with headphones at all, I would strongly suggest buying the X-Fi immediately! I have never heard better 3D positioning through headphones than with this card. I used to game exclusively with a 5.1 Klipsch ProMedia system, using expensive Sennheiser HD-595 headphones only for music. I hated losing the 5.1 experience when gaming. Once I got this card things have changed, and I now game almost exclusively with headphones! Keeps the wife happier and the volume where I like it .. :D I feel more immersed in the game with headphones and the X-Fi card than I do with a dedicated 5.1 setup.

Sorry if you are still confused. :) Only you can decide what fits your situation the best. If money is an issue, I would use the nForce2 sound for now and get the X-Fi with your next upgrade. By then it will be cheaper and you can still have great sound now.

You can't go wrong with the X-Fi either. It doesn't have Dolby Digital Live, but if you are running stereo it won't matter.

BTW, you have already made the best decision with the 170SE's .. they are great speakers!

Sorry to raise the issue again, but I was considering getting the X-Fi and I've come across a few issues, namely having to do with the way the X-Fi is marketed. After doing some research into the topic, I came across this thread:

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=173677&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=xfi+audigy2&start=0

Basically, the "Crystalizer" is just an EQ setting...but it introduces a ton of intermodulation distortion that is apparently much more percievable on high-end speakers (read: CBM-170SEs) than it is on low end pc speakers. It also does upsampling to 48khz from 44.1khz.

From http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1877552,00.asp
We see that the X-Fi "Can restore badly recorded or compressed content." (Pros section of review)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in all the reviews I've read of the X-Fi, none of them have mentioned actually testing this "restoration" feature. To me this seems like low-down, dirty marketing. It honestly sounds like the Creative marketing team read

Crystalizer - improves sound [on low end speakers]
Upsampling - fills in sound [from 44.1khz to 48khz]

And created something along the lines of "improves sound of music by filling in bits left out in the recording process"

Can anyone comment on this?

It has made me reluctant to even touch an X-Fi, because if you take out the Crystalizer and Upsampling....the only new feature left over Audigy2 is the extra level of EAX support.

swank, can you comment on how much improved the CMSS in X-Fi is over the Audigy2's?
The Audigy2 also has CMSS...albeit less settings. It still has excellent positional audio in games though, and I've used it to great effect in CS while using headphones. Did you ever use the CMSS feature of the Audigy2's? If so, is it really that much better in an X-Fi?

Also, would I benefit any from the 48khz sampling rate with my 170SEs?

Asliang
05-12-2006, 01:08 AM
Did you ever use the CMSS feature of the Audigy2's? If so, is it really that much better in an X-Fi?

The touted improvements in CMSS are to headphone effects. However, these are still purely software effects, so it's not as if without a little programming knowledge/low level hacking that your Audigy 2 could do the same thing.


Also, would I benefit any from the 48khz sampling rate with my 170SEs?

You mean by 48KHz resampling? It introduces some artifacts, as upsampling is generally meant to remove the high frequency noise of the digital filter at 22.05KHz (from a 44.1KHz sample rate). If you upsample, generally the correct way is to sample at multiples of the original rate--aka 88.2 (and push the digital filter out according to 44.1KHz, so-called "inaudible" territory. At 48KHz, there is some added noise as whatever algorithm makes some assumptions about the wave form to fill the missing points. The benefit would be if you like the artifacts that come about from it. But if you don't like the effect, then it's not a benefit anymore.

Siba
05-12-2006, 01:18 AM
The touted improvements in CMSS are to headphone effects. However, these are still purely software effects, so it's not as if without a little programming knowledge/low level hacking that your Audigy 2 could do the same thing.



You mean by 48KHz resampling? It introduces some artifacts, as upsampling is generally meant to remove the high frequency noise of the digital filter at 22.05KHz (from a 44.1KHz sample rate). If you upsample, generally the correct way is to sample at multiples of the original rate--aka 88.2 (and push the digital filter out according to 44.1KHz, so-called "inaudible" territory. At 48KHz, there is some added noise as whatever algorithm makes some assumptions about the wave form to fill the missing points. The benefit would be if you like the artifacts that come about from it. But if you don't like the effect, then it's not a benefit anymore.

Thank you for your very detailed explanation. It was helpful and I now feel more knowledgeable about the subject :)