Creative Audigy 2 ZS soundcard to NAD T762 receiver??
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Bronze Member Username: SrkstanKazakhstan Post Number: 56 Registered: Apr-04 | I have a PC set up for my music, and I am using the Creative Audigy 2 ZS soundcard. I used to use it connected to a Pioneer 5.1 receiver using the analog outputs on the soundcard and the 5.1 inputs on the receiver. It worked this way: one mini to dual RCA cable from one soundcard analog out to the front R&L inputs on the receiver, one mini to dual RCA cable from the middle analog out on the soundcard to the surround R&L inputs on the receiver, and one mini to dual RCA cable from the last analog out on the soundcard to the center and subwoofer inputs on the receiver. It worked flawlessly! Now, I have upgraded my receiver--it is a NAD T762. It has 6.1 sound, and it has a 7.1 input (with six RCA inputs). Can I use my analog output on the soundcard to plug into the 7.1 input on the receiver? If I do, can I just go from the three analog outputs on the soundcard to six of the seven inputs on the receiver? If so, which ones? If not, can I use a RCA splitter to make one of the mini to dual RCA cords actually a mini to tri RCA cord? Does anybody know what I am talking about? |
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elroacho Unregistered guest | They have a mini jack that is tri, i beleive it's made for camcorders. Mono has 1 stripe, stereo has 2, and the camcorder mini has 3. I think thats what your looking for. If i'm ot mistaken, you would use the tri mini in the jack shared by the center and sub, giving you a front center, rear center, and sub. Not shure how to work the 7.1 and 8.1 configurations. Look on your receiver for any type of direct input, because it's analog, it isn't decoded in the receiver, it simply forwards any analog info to the volume control. If it's anything like my receiver (Harmon Kardon 230), then there should be digital coxial input (RCA jack), optical input, and direct input (RCA jacks). I'm currently trying to use the coxial output on my audigy 2 to the coxial input on the receiver, but havn't had any luck getting sound out of the rear speakers. So far from what I have read it's because the surround speakers will only be used if there is a 5.1 or better encoded digital signal currently being used. If you where to play a PC game or listen to music, the surround won't work. The thing is tho, I have tried playing DVD's with 5.1 encoded surround and the surround speakers still don't output sound. Perhaps someone else can clarify. Later |
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Unregistered guest Unregistered guest | First, the camcorder mini jack probably won't work for your reciever. It might, but 2 of the channels will be the same, not what you are looking for. Best case scenario, with a 5.1 soundcard, hookup 5.1 sound. You can't create channels that aren't there! Second, you have to use a digital coax cable to make that connection. If you are using a regular RCA interconnect, you won't be getting the 5.1 sound. good luck! |
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Silver Member Username: Project6Post Number: 784 Registered: Dec-03 | Why won't you get 5.1 surround if you use an RCA interconnect in place of a digital coaxial cable??? |
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Unregistered guest | After reading some different reviews available I decided to go with the Audigy 2 ZS. Basically, I read that Creative Labs has improved noise levels and added more features (EAX 4.0, Dolby Surround up to 7.1 etc.) with the ZS from the previous Audigy 2. It was only 99 bucks but it was so worth it. I destroyed my living room last night putting my home sound system to better use lol. I disassembled everything from the big screen TV and setup my table in the living room again. Now I have the monitor setup again (so much crisper video than the big screen TV) with the RCA Dolby 5.1 receiver on the table. Basically I positioned the table so that I can have front left, center, front right, subwoofer, rear right, rear left all pointing directly at my head to maximize zapping potential hahah. DUDE. I'll never go back to 2 speaker setups if I can help it -- this is freakin amazing! On the down side, I have only been successful at piping out DVD movies and Creative's Dolby Digital demo to the true 5.1 sound. It didn't sound like Doom 3 was working correctly with all 6 speakers, but I think I know what's going on. After reading a hellacious forum thread(https://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/forum/home-audio/2098.html), I've learned a few things. In short, I've found a way to save money and just use the home sound system instead of dropping more money on a surround sound set of computer speakers. I know I am a true computer dork and nobody wants to talk to me about it so I'll just send my newly acquired info to into this forum and maybe help someone out with similiar issues. The Audigy 2 soundcard has a built in Dolby Digital encoder (most recent cards do dating back to the SB live) and so do most home audio receivers. My receiver accepts a digital coaxial cable while the soundcard outputs a 1/8" digital jack. So you have to rig it up with a 1/8" mono to RCA adapter and plug in the digital coax from the RCA to the receiver. Then, you have to trick the card into Not Decoding Dolby signals to let the receiver's decoder do the job. This is done by setting SPDIF passthrough on the soundcard as well as any software that is running. For example, in PowerDVD you have to turn off the Dolby decoder option and set to SPDIF output only. This DID work. I got all speaker indications lighting up on the receiver and it sounded incredible. Now, as for games... It's not always possible to set them for SPDIF passthrough only. I couldn't find an option like this in Doom 3, Serious Sam, or UT 2004. Most of their options just ask if you want surround sound enabled with EAX or not. Doom 3 sound outputs only gave me 2 lights on the receiver and it almost sounded like everything was dominating the center speaker. Somethin ain't right...so here's what I'm going to do tonight to get it to work... Go back to Radio Shack and buy 3 1/8" Stereo to RCA connections to use the analog outputs from the soundcard. Each channel has 2 signals on it: channel 1 is Front Left and Front Right, channel 2 is rear left and rear right (and side right if you are wanting Dolby surround 7.1 but this would need a 1/8" 3pole to RCA connector instead), and finally channel 3 is center speaker and subwoofer (and again a 3rd signal for the side left if you want to run 7.1). Connect all 6 inputs now into the analog speaker inputs on the Home Receiver. So now we will use the Dolby Decoder ON the Audigy 2 soundcard and only use the Home Receiver for amplification to the speakers. Now we don't have to worry about the SPDIF passthrough crap... and now the Dolby should work correctly with the games. SWEET can't wait to try it out tonight !$@# Sometimes learning can be fun, heh  |
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Bronze Member Username: SrkstanKazakhstan Post Number: 67 Registered: Apr-04 | I have this set up using the 7.1 input on the receiver. It works great for music! You need to go into the EAX consule and try the different surround modes. I haven't listened to DVD audio yet, but I think my set up is basically creating a DVD-audio type mix from my MP3s, and it sounds great. The only issue I have is that you can hear the music go down slightly in volume occassionally in the middle of a song, but I am assuming this is related to the compression of the MP3s...Otherwise, it is a nice way to mix one's music into 5.1, 6.1, or even 7.1! Just to add, I use Monster mini to dual RCA cables for the sound card out to the receiver input, and to get 6.1, I use a RCA splitter on the center speaker to input to the back speaker. I am assuming with 7.1 I could use two RCA splitters to reproduce the left and right surrounds in the back. |
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Ryanjj Unregistered guest | Hi, I've got the Audigy 2 ZS hooked up to my receiver via the Analogue connections. When playing UT2k4, I get no subwoofer. When doing a "speaker test" everything works out fine. I was able to get the subwoofer working however, by switching the center and subwoofer RCA cables in the multi ch input on my reciever. My center and sub were switched in doing this though. |
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Anonymous | Okay, After spending 20+ hours on this project, I am convinced of the following regarding the Audigy 2: You can't get surround sound on *games* using the digital connections (optical or coaxial). I finally went with the analog connections solution (three 1/8 inch to dual RCA connections), and now everything works great. You're letting the card do the encoding instead of the receiver, and the receiver is amplfying the signal. I hope this helps. |
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Ryan3435 Unregistered guest | I have a DENON AVR-1603 Receiver with Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 surround sound capability. Its connected to my Audigy2 ZS plat pro using the optical out on the front of the external hub. I am not getting 5.1 sound (only stereo) and cant get a dolby digital signal. I have 5.1 sound enabled and digital settings selected. WHat am i doing wrong?? My previous onboard sound card (SandStorm) on my ABIT NFS-7 mobo get a dolby digital signal and all. so i know its not my receiver. any advice? |
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Bronze Member Username: SrkstanKazakhstan Post Number: 68 Registered: Apr-04 | I have used the 5.1 analog output from the sound card to the 5.1 input on the receiver using mini to dual RCA connectors. This goes into the last three mini plugs of the sound card and outputs to the front, rear, and center/sub inputs on the receiver if the receiver has a 5.1/7.1 input. Try it; mine works great!! |
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funked1 Unregistered guest | Ryan as far as I know the Audigy series will not encode Dolby Digital 5.1 (AC-3) and send it out over SPDIF (optical or RCA). All it will send out over SPDIF is a stereo PCM signal. Get one of the nForce or nForce2 motherboards with the nVidia MCP-T which can encode Dolby. Or else the M-Audio Audiophile sound card. |
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New member Username: ThxtechnetUpstate, NY US Post Number: 1 Registered: Oct-04 | I have worked with PC digital audio Home entertainment convergence for years now and had to actually rig around many of the 2 industries attempts to keep the other out of "their" business. But now it seems as though things are coming together. This 7.1 output situation is easiliy resolved if you use some common sense. 7.1 is 8 Channels (7+1 actually). since themanufacturers are only providing 3 discreet outputs...these channels must be divided discreetly amongst these connections or you do not have channel separation...you have a matrixed environment...SO IF YOU ARE USING ANY KIND OF STEREO MINI SPLITTER OR ANY SPLITTER BEHIND THE OUTPUTJACKS BESIDES A MINI TRI ON OUTPUT #2  YOU HAVE MATRIXED SOUND!!!What I have found with The NEW SOUNDBLASTER audigy2 zs is that the #1 analog channel is still your discreet 2 channel front right/left requiring 1 mini stereo to RCA left right for your AMPs 7.1 external decoder input. Analog input #2 has now been upgraded to a discreet stereo + mono output, in this case rear left/right and the mono as the side right. This output requires a mini tri (camcorder type make sure it's stereo w/mono *** not mono-mono) the stereo rca right being your right rear stereo rca left your left rear and the mono will be your side right connection to your AMP....I think you get the idea now you need 1 more mini tri to do your center sub and side left....center is usually Rca stereo left/ sub is rca stereo right and your side left would be the mono rca. Now take note that this is for using the onboard 96khz 7.1/6.1/5.1 soundblaster decoders...although it appears analog it is not you are dropping the final decoded signal straight on your PA's bypassing most manufacturer's internal circuitry. In my case I also have Coaxial in and optical in and outputs. I have found that while listening to the Soundblaster decoders is much preferable...when I record and such I switch over and monitor on my digital connection. If you have questions concerning PC Home entertainment convergence you can contact me on Yahoo chat user ID THXtexhnet |
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SoulGrind Unregistered guest | just to clear something. the SBlive and upwards series do NOT have Dolby Digital Encoders, They have decoders. Only MCP-T chipset motherboards (NFORCE2 series) support Dolby digital encoding. cheers. |
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SoulGrind. Unregistered guest | I've been reading some of these posts. It's simple, most games don't use Dolby Digital, some do most don't. For games that do use AC3 aka DD you must disable your card from decoding the AC3 signal and set it to pass through the signal to any dd receiver your using. As for music, you won't get DD from a stereo source, you will only get 4 split channels unless you use Soundstorm (mcp-t) chipset with the old nforce drivers enabling crossover to get the center and sub channels (which are true channels) Games that aren't encoded in dolby digital won't run all channels through 1 Spdif or Coax cable. It simply doesn't work like that, you'll only get stereo signal so don't expect anything else. The only way to get 5.1 on games is to use all the output jacks in the back of your sound card to your receiver. That being (as example) L/R front, L/R Rear and Center/Sub. To get surround in games via AC3, You need a nforce2 board with MCP-T chipset that can ENCODE in real-time 3 pcm signals into AC3, then it gets sent to your receiver to be decoded... again, there is NO soundcard that supports DD encoding atm. Don't believe me, try reading the spec sheets for these cards. If you want to get 4 channels of music with winamp. You need to go to options, preferences then plug-ins, output click directsound output, configure, then select "allow hardware acceleration" cheers. |
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Ericnet69 Unregistered guest | I am having so much trouble with this lol. I have an older computer in a soundblaster Audiogy attached to it. I want to get 5.1 out of the damn thing and i have it hooked up to my yamaha htr-5650 reciver. I have 3 cables. all are anolog y spliters where on one end is a sterio headphone jack and the other 2 rca cables. I put them into the 6chanal input thing on the back of the reciver. I kept fideling with which holes to put the headphone jacks in on my soundcard. most annoying thing is, i can get the front left and right to work and the center, but i can only get sound out of the rear left speaker, and i dont even know if the sub is working or not. could someone help me out please? You could e-mail me at erickorngold83@yahoo.com |
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DJ_Omega_Rush Unregistered guest | http://www.epanorama.net/documents/audio/spdif.html This place has the actual specs on spdif. Basically our audigy cannot encode dolby digital. The SPDIF connection has only a certain bandwith it can pump through. You can use 24bit 96k and that takes up most of the bandwith (except for the overhead). The Stereo sound you are hearing is fully uncompressed (PCM) sound at whatever frequency you have it set at. So when you use dolby digital encoding, it is a compressed format. So since the data is smaller, you can pump more channels through the spif, depending on how many channels and their bitrate for each channel. It's like Audio CDs back in the day. They were used just for audio. But they are digital. So they decided to put regular data on the CD and wham, you can hold more info. then was originally intended. The Audio CD Format has alot of error correction on it and therefore takes up alot of space on the CD. If you extract every song on a CD as a .wav and make a Data CD with those same waves, you will find you can fit more data on there (that is if you find an Audio CD that takes up ALL the space which is hard to find). You will still see a difference. It's the same thing. Older technology, better sound quality for stereo, but it wasn't a format that was forward compatible. So Dolby and DTS are just signals using up the PCM audio bandwidth in a different and compressed way. The ONLY way to get 5.1 and up on the Audigy is THE ANALOG CONNECTIONS on the back of your Receiver. I've been hoping someone out there has gotten with Dolby and had a software plugin that takes direct x sound, converts it to AC3, then pumps it out the SPDIF. |
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Unregistered guest | Please Help me.I have Philips MMS460 5.1 and Creative Audigy LS PCI bulk. i can get the front left and right to work, next what i can get is a Woofer and the center. I want to play music on winamp With all speakers. Can I ? Please help me. Sorry for bad english :/ Kristupas fps@one.lt |
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Unregistered guest | I have just placed a new plasma T.V. above a nonfunctioning fireplace, the problem is there is no place above or below it to put the center channel speaker. I am using niles in-wall and ceiling speakers and would like to know if I should place the center channel next to the T.V., put a directed soud speaker in the ceiling or posibly some way of splitting the center channel to a pair os speakers directly to the sides ? |
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Unregistered guest | Thanks very much people for all you comments. I too have had horrendous difficulty getting multi-channel (AC3) from my PC to my AMP. After exhaustive hours and buying a Audigy card to try and solve the problem... I have given up. I am now retiring my AMD 64 bit processor and K8NE Asus motherboard and going back to a 32 bit Athlon and a motherboard using Nforce2 chipset with "Soundstorm" . Check out these audio chips, they truly are awesome and possibly the only solution for digital multichannel output. Not many boards have this chip and associated "Soundstorm" application. I've got a Abit AN7 that does the job beautifully. I have no idea why Nvidia dropped this technology from the nForce 3 and nForce 4. Crazy but maybe political as NForce would dominate with the Soundstorm APU once the PC to AV enthusiasts realized how good this is. All I can hope is that Nvidia will make a sound card soon. If you don't want to go the nForce 2 way. Then at last look I think I found a M-Audio sound card that will encode to AC-3 cheers folks, |
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New member Username: CorinPost Number: 1 Registered: Mar-05 | I am a noob when it comes to rigging my PC up to my amp and am suffering greatly.... I have an optical digital cable running from the top hole of the Audigy 2 ZS (purports to be digital out) into an "optical in" on my amplifier (Pioneer). Guess what - I play something through Musicmatch Jukebox, or even the test signal from the Creative software, and nothing comes out at all - nada, nichts, rien.... the PC says it's playing OK but nothing comes out of the speakers. Any ideas on what may be wrong - I've told the amp to just play whatever comes through the channel as "STREAM DIRECT" so I would have thought something would go squeak somewhere? I'm only doing this coz I gave up on trying to get the firewire to connect to the amp's i-Link... grrr All help gratefully received |
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Ber Unregistered guest | I have troubles getting my subwoofer to work with a nad T741 and audigy... it works great and then something happens and the level on the sub is very low... any ideas? should I search on the computer or on the receiver? |
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jvlpdillon Unregistered guest | This is by far the most complete discussion I have found on SPDIF, and AC3 audio, thank you. I am creating MPEG2 transport streams with with AC3 audio. I have an external audio analyzer from Dolby (LM100) that will display the type of audio, PCM, DD etc and its levels, whenever I play the files out of my PC with a Audigy 2 ZS card I get sound but it is converted to PCM, I have set the SPDIF to passthrough, is this the result of the Audiogy card not encoding the AC3? Shouldn't the card just pass whatever is finds? or is it still decoding? |
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squiress Unregistered guest | Wow - there's several topics flying across this thread. I'd like to chime in on the "subwoofer works during speaker calibration but doesn't during music playback". Does anyone reading this thread have any suggestions on how to enable the subwoofer for music on an amplifier connected to the PC via mini-splitRCA via multichannel in connection? |
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Unregistered guest | cmedia do a soundcard, though when i looked it seemed unreleased, that so spdif Dolby Digital (AC-3) encoding on the fly. I'm waiting and hoping it works like the old nforce chipsets. They also do older solitions that use software encoding. Though i do love my audigy, it just doesnt seem to do spdif encoding on the fly, and i dont want to use a load of analog rca connections, just my noise free optical linkup. You can see the new cmedia card on ther com.tw website. |
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Unregistered guest | most modern soundcards are for 5.1 or 7.1 sounds and to connect to a surround amplifier. how do i have to connect such a soundcard to my "old" stereo ampli wich has no digital input only the traditional aux input(RCA connection). please help me? |
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Bubbafish Unregistered guest | Great thread. My 5.1 receiver is about 15 feet away from my computer. I plan to use 3 mini-to-dual-RCA connectors to wire my Audigy 2 to the 6 analog 5.1 ext inputs of my receiver. I have a 1" conduit under my floor that I can run the cables through, but I'd prefer to run just 3 mini cables through (and split into the RCAs near the receiver), versus running 6 RCA cables through the conduit (and split at the computer). Does anyone know where to get long extenders for the mini cables? |
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New member Username: RcubePost Number: 1 Registered: May-05 | Hi, I was able to fix the 5.1 spdif output problem between my audigy2 and Sony receiver. Previously it was playing only two channels regardles of the control panel settings. You just need need to install an AC3 filter, can be any, I used the free one: http://www.free-codecs.com/AC3_Filter_download.htm After the installation, go to Start-->programs-->"AC3 Filter"--> "AC3 filter setup" On the "MAin" screen, select 5.1, 24bit, mark "SPDIF" On "system" tab, select AC3, DTS and MPEG for SPDIF Pasthrough. Restart your player or game and start enjoying the 5.1 sound :-) All my stuff plays great, including games, DVDs and .avi movies with AC3 sound track. Would be interesting to know if it worked for you, so please post here. |
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Pollegie Unregistered guest | well rcube, that tip totally scream up my sound. It sounds horrible. |
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Anonymous | Dolby Digital Interactive Content Encoder (DICE) Computer games written with support for 3D audio do not require a Dolby Digital Interactive Content Encoder (DICE) to output multichannel sound, with no exceptions. Sound devices that support the real time encoder technology from Dolby will simply receive the multichannel wave file output and encode it in real time to a somewhat modified Dolby Digital bitstream. Creative does not support the Dolby Digital Interactive Content Encoder on any of its sound cards. The only difference between a Sound Blaster card and an audio card that has a real time encoder, is that you can make a one-wire, digital connection from your audio card to your home theater receiver and enjoy discrete multichannel sound from the game. However there will be a continuous, slight delay, known as "latency", as the encoder is creating and transmitting the bitstream, and of course the compression scheme being used is "lossy" (i.e. not bit-accurate). If you want to enjoy 3D audio in 3D enabled PC games in multichannel surround sound with a Sound Blaster card, it is recommended that you connect the analog outputs of the sound card directly to the analog inputs of the receiver. This will require 3 cables for 5.1 surround sound, one for front right and left, one for rear left and right, and another one for front center and subwoofer. Though it requires more cables than a real time encoder system, it will not have any latency issues. When connecting PC audio to a home theater receiver, Creative's latest sound cards such as Sound Blaster Audigy, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 are likely to provide higher quality audio than any Dolby Digital real time encode system available for the PC today. |
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BizByte Unregistered guest | I have a Denon 3803. It has three rca inputs on the back which allow for 5.1, 6.1, etc. I keep reading all these posts about getting these three one-into-three rca and just use the back of the computer instead of the optical out which I so wish you could use. Can someone clarify this for someone without much av experience? I can be reached on AOL instant messenger screen name: HeyBoBo95 Thanks |
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D3viou5 Unregistered guest | i'm not gonna go into a huge essay about this one as i have just found the solution to my problem (and one which appears so frequently in this forum) and i wanna get down to some decent sound......but i use an audigy zs with spdif output to sherwood reciever and get DD in pretty much everything. Give AC3filter_1_01a_rc5 a try and see what happens. Set all outputs to 5.1 and enable spdif when in ac3 filter and set spdif enabled everywhere including soundblaster HQ device menu(Don't use decoders, use spdif passthrough) and any software wmp10/9 or MCE etc..... Seems to work for me as i think this filter encodes ac3 on the fly and passes it to the spdif......outside that see if it works and let me know if anyone else has success. |
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ChrisPower Unregistered guest | Ryan3435, you say you cant get true "dolby digital" from anything. you're right. Try playing a dvd on your computer and i guarantee you will get a dolby digital signal. The thing that people need to understand (took me alot of research to find myself) is that "Dolby Digital" is exactly that, digital. You need a true "digital" signal coming out of the computer for it to properly get "Decoded" by your receiver. Dolby Digital is infact a type of compression believe it or not, and you need a source from your computer that outputs a stream of that compression. The only thing that does that right now on computers is DVD playback and thats it. You said your sandstorm worked, yes, it would because they are the mfr's of the few cards in the world that acually do realtime dolby digital compression as to allow people to hear everything that comes from their computer in "dolby digital". I hope this answers your question and some of others. |
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Unregistered guest | I to am having issues with the analog inputs - Ive tried the mini to TRI cable - I couldnt get the sub beating at all - Im not TOO concerned with it - basically im just splitting it off the front left speaker right now - But im wondering if it would be better to split it off the front right speaker instead? I mean it would be GREEEAT - if someone figured out how to actually get the bass output from the soundcard to work on the reciever (without the spdif) - using analog - So far ive had no luck - with the TRI cable - I got nothing from my bass - grr - very frustrating . . . . |
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Anonymous | Guys - I too have had the problems above. The #1 f'n problem with the Audigy 2 is that the subwoofer is not utilized in 2 channel stereo! When playing games, the triple analog connections work great, and the subwoofer DOES work. Here's my solution, though I don't know if it's one for all of you. I utilize my soundblaster ONLY for gaming. I use the analog out into my reciever. When playing games, I get 5.1 support, and all speakers work. I utilize the Nforce3's onboard audio processor for ALL other functions (dvds, mp3's, etc). I utlize the optical out from the motherboard directly into one of my optical inputs to my reciever. Crystal clear sound AND the subwoofer always works in 2 channel stereo sound. DVD's also sound superb. It seems creative threw us a bone with this. It sucks having to utilize 2 cards to get the full stereo effect for games, dvds and music - but I really don't feel like going out and spending 300 bucks on their new top of the line audio cards either. |
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Unregistered guest | Hello everyone, i'd been reading all the posts here and experienced similar difficulties/questions about 5.1 playback when i first bought my audigy 2 zs. the answer is surprisingly simple ! here it is! the coaxial or optical are the ones u need for TRUE SURROUND SOUND! yes thats right one digital stereo output from your computer does all 5.1 you see its IMPORTANT that you actually spent some money on your speakers and bought a unit with a "DOLBY DIGITAL DECODER" for example i spent several hundred australian $$$ on my logitech z680 PC speakers which have a decoder, if i'd have spent just $80 i could have bought some 5.1 speakers looking similar but no decoder.. the difference in price here IS of course speaker quality on mine are better too but its the DECODER. what it does is gets the digital stereo in like your mp3's and whatever and puts it out in 5.1 WOW AWESOME! PART ONE - - WITH A DECODER connect via coaxial or optical to the reciever. Then when you've installed your audigy software and do speaker tests in surround mixer you can only hear front left and front right.. but play an mp3 and it comes out from all speakers when your decoder has been configured to use coaxial in (just the one cable) and a dolby setting like "movie" or "music". Always have it on a dolby mode as these will create 5.1 audio from the stereo digital coax or optical input please note that you DO NOT NEED TO CONFIGURE WINDOWS SPEAKER SETUP TO 5.1 leave it as 2/2.1 desktop stereo speakers or it will lose quality you only need stereo into the decoder. If you have your decoder set to direct channel (bad idea) only stereo will come out as its 2 channels coming straight through without decoding "direct throughput" pretty useless unless you wanted to use lots and lots of analog cables try reading some manuals on the configurable modes of your speakers to see if you can customize your dolby decoding (like louder surround, or channel width ect. so you can get an even sweeter sound). As was mentioned earlier in here by those in the know for people with true 5.1 and expensive dolby decoder units, you should enable SPDIF and disable software dolby decoding in your soundcard configuration utility and wherever else might be decoding AC3. install the AC3 decoder filter then ensure that it too is set to use SPDIF out (decoder filters usually configurable in control panel or a start menu programs shortcut or during movie playback in some media players). This will give you the best results by far and actually put to use the decoder you spent money on. PART 2 - - NO DECODER Now for those of you that raced out and bought 5.1 speakers very very cheaply and have no decoder and will surely be needing the use of lots and lots of analog audio cables all over the place after you plugged them all in you will need to actually use the software which comes with the audigy 2 soundcard (it might have been hard to find in the manual as you'd have to have read it). Go into EAX console (this was maybe a checkbox on bottom left in surround mixer in the older cards) and there you will find the CMSS feature this is 5.1 SOFTWARE UPMIXING specially for your soundcard to use with cheap speakers. enable this then play your mp3's you will get it on all speakers but remember its just not as good as the real thing. those of you who do not have a decoder must always have software decoding on and will still need to install the AC3 decoder filter too but cant use SPDIF and of course set your speaker configuration in windows or speaker calibration to 5.1 but there is simply no substitute for hardware decoding i really really recommend you all consider buying one. my two cents worth - with your audigy 2 cards in the configuration thing (im sure you can find it the software doesnt come with much) you can set it to use 96khz instead of 48khz. --If you really wanna tweak your sounds a bit try having fun by making your own EAX audio settings and editing the reverb and chorus settings (play with lots and lots of slider bars) till you get a sound you like !!!this works best to improve the sound on very cheap speakers and ones without decoders, high quality crisp speakers/decoder where you can even hear the singers breathing perfectly will make the extra artificial reverb and chorus painfully clear and while it may sound a little fresh or different will be an overall degradation of the sound and will sound totally awful with DVD's and such as the decoder puts in the perfect amounts of reverb for surround by itself!! QUALITY PC speakers with decoder units in them are much much cheaper than spending thousands of dollars on a hi-fi unit for your living room and still output over 500 watts RMS are THX certified and DTS support (cant get any better than that) and totally kick granny down the stairs then back up, they produce similar sound quality too (of course they dont have an earthshaking 15inch sub and all its usually just 10 inches with PC speakers but still pump hard enough to blow air out in jets i can use to dry my hair damn good) so it would be better to buy them instead IMHO unless you can afford to throw money around and if you already bought some hi-fi worth thousands then you might wanna hook it up to a better sound card than audigy 2 - you know you can afford it otherwise read the steps above in part 1 for decoders. yeah longest post i've ever done hope it helps at least one person good luck. |
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Nate-187 Unregistered guest | I just want to take this time to say THANK YOU VERY MUCH to all of you who posted. I recently have had the same problem the majority of you had. I hooked up a toslink optical cable to my receiver in hopes of having true 5.1 surround for all of my games, dvd's and what not. To my dismay, I could only get 5.1 on DVD's. I never even thought to hook up the damn analog connectors to the receiver to play my games in 5.1 Although I have not tried this yet, I am pretty positive that this will solve my problem. The AC3 filter allows me to utilze the toslink optical connector for true 5.1 on my dvd's. But it will not work for my games. I cannot wait to try the other cables. One question I do have is regarding the playback of recorded television. For some reason when I play recorded television my audio and video are not insync. I read somewhere else that you can strip the audio and video away from each other with some program, and then burn them onto a disc and that will fix the problem, but I would rather just hit play and not mess with all that jazz.. Does anyone have a suggestions, or know of somewhere else to go to get info about this? I have the ATI TV wonder Elite card, it utilizes the theatre 550 chipset (I think). Also, I cannot get 5.1 to come from live tv either, but I assume that the other cables mentioned above will fix that. Another question I have is reguarding the digital connector on the cd and dvd rom I have. How will this benefit me?? I have 8.1 onboard audio VIA my motherboard. (Abit AA8XE) Is it worth switching from the analog cable already present, to a digital one? Thanks again to you all, you have helped me soooooo much.. Have a great holiday season. Nate |
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Anonymous | I've run cable from some outside speakers to my primary sterio system. Now all I need is a switch-box to allow music out of the primary speakers, the outside speakers, or both. I have an old switch box from Radio Shack that worked horribly. Can anyone recommend a high-end product to do this job? Thanks, |
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Anonymous | You would be better off to buy a new receiver that will output to an A and B front channel. I have the Yamaha 5840. It works awesome for that. If you run two sets of speaker off of one channel of an amp, you may cause serious problems to the amp. But, if you really want to, you could always just run both pairs of speaker wire from the same connection on the amp, and forget the box. |
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suppressor Unregistered guest | i have a problem like ryanjj. I have used the analoge setup to get my 5.1 surround yet i do not get any subwoofer. i get every other channel but the sub. i dont know what ryanjj is saying about a multi channel but i have everything plugged in. The front L and R are in, Surround left and Right are in and the center and sub are in as well and i just dont get any sub. I have an audigy 2 ZS and a yamaha htr-5830. help would be appreciated. |
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