Digital Sound

[Biscuit]

I did have my creative XFI wired up to my sony amp via coax using the daft multi jack thing and i couldnt get 4channel sound from that. I now have it wired up using the onboard sound however i still cant seem to get 4 channel sound working, its stuck on stereo.

Im using Vista 32 and my mobo is an A8N-32 SLI Deluxe so uses ac97 drivers which are the most recent ones from the asus website.

I have tried configuring it all using the windows sound options and the soundmanager thing but had no luck think it might be time to start saving for that auzentech XFI

[Agent]

Hi

Are you saying that you have it wired to your amp via coax digital?
If that's the case, you wont get anything above 2 channel without using some form of encoding (usually Dolby Digital or DTS).
You'll be happy to know that Creative dont support either of these with their cards, although being Creative, you really didn't expect anything less did you?

The auzentech XFI does / will support these according to this.

The only way I know of connecting a Creative soundcard to a 5.1 digital receiver, is via the 3.5mm jack. I've no idea what form of encoding this uses to pass the data along to the amp, but I know it works from my aud2zs -> Cambridge soundworks amp. I have never seen another amp with one on though - I assume they are propitiatory to Creative?

Hope that helps

[Biscuit]

I had only checked using the test feature on the sound-card option. In films it seemsto work... what about games? how do i get 4 channel on them?

[Agent]

I had only checked using the test feature on the sound-card option. In films it seemsto work... what about games? how do i get 4 channel on them?

You dont, over digital, sadly.
The audio in films is already encoded as Dolby Digital / DTS (depends what they used, although most of the market is Dolby dominated), the soundcard is simply passing this pre-encoded data on to your amp.
Your amp then takes this and decodes it into its individual channels, which uses your 4 speakers.

Your soundcard has no way to encode the realtime audio that your computer generates into a multi channel stream that your amp can understand. Creative have never supported this. That would just be too simple - Like I said, you didn't expect it to be that easy with Creative, did you?

You need a card with Dolby Digital Live ouput (it contains a Dolby Digital Interactive Content Encoder (DICE) to take the audio from your computer, and encode it ready for the amp), or the DTS equivalent if your amp supports it. The one I liked above is an example, or the Nforce 2 'soundstorm'.

If you want 4 channel from your amp from non-encoded DD content (ie. Normal computer stuff), you need to use the analogue ouputs from your soundcard to the amp. There is no other way.

[Biscuit]

So is 'DICE' you mentioned is a similar kind of concept to the dolby pro-logic or does that actually encode the various 5.1/6.1/7.1 analogue channels into a DD signal for the amp?

[Agent]

D.I.C.E. actually encodes data into a real 5.1 stream that the amp can understand, yup

See: http://www.auzentech.com/site/produc...relude.php#ddl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_D...y_Digital_Live
Explains it in more detail

[Biscuit]

Excelent...

now to save up the pennies