2.0 sound through 5.1 SPDIF

renegade_officer89

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Hello to everyone within this site.

I recently bought a Philips HTD3540/98 home theater unit that I planned to hook up to my PC using SPDIF. But since my PC had no onboard SPDIF (my motherboard is a Gigabyte B75M-D3V), I bought a sound card as well, a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCIe. However, after installing everything and updated the latest drivers, I found out that it only played back 2.0 sounds through the speakers, in that the front and rear pairs played the same audio, while the woofer doesn't play at all when I used a 5.1 test file (supposedly) that I got from a youtube link. However, when playing a regular 2 channel video, sound came from the woofer.

A solution that I found that I don't want to use if possible is to use the receiver's aux in port together with the onboard Realtek audio and set it so that it uses 5.1 speakers within the Realtek audio setting. However, a test of each speakers also showed that the woofer does not produce any sound, when it does on the optical audio.

Anyone with this same problem or knows the issue? Thanks in advance!
 
Solution
This isn't a problem as such, that's by design - spidif is only designed to carry a stereo signal, it doesn't have the bandwidth to carry a 5.1 surround sound signal.

There is a solution, it's called Dolby Digital Live, it takes your uncompressed 5.1 audio and compresses down to Dolby Digital 5.1 which is compressed enough to fit down an optical cable.

I personally use a Xonar U7 sound card to send 5.1 down an optical cable to my surround sound system.

Edit: unfortunately it doesn't look like your soundcard is supported, according to the "specifications" tab here:

http://us.store.creative.com/Dolby-Digital-Live-and-DTS-Connect/M/B006GK76QE.htm

gopher1369

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This isn't a problem as such, that's by design - spidif is only designed to carry a stereo signal, it doesn't have the bandwidth to carry a 5.1 surround sound signal.

There is a solution, it's called Dolby Digital Live, it takes your uncompressed 5.1 audio and compresses down to Dolby Digital 5.1 which is compressed enough to fit down an optical cable.

I personally use a Xonar U7 sound card to send 5.1 down an optical cable to my surround sound system.

Edit: unfortunately it doesn't look like your soundcard is supported, according to the "specifications" tab here:

http://us.store.creative.com/Dolby-Digital-Live-and-DTS-Connect/M/B006GK76QE.htm
 
Solution

gopher1369

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Assuming your soundcard supports it, which I don't think yours does, you simply go into your audio settings and set the default format to DDL: http://www.bbpix.com/files/1/2012/realtec_ddl_z68xp.png

The disadvantage is that the audio is compressed. It's still 768kbps though and outside of audiophile equipment and ideal conditions I bet you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the uncompressed audio and the compressed Dolby Digital audio. So no, no real disadvantages.
 

gopher1369

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You're out of luck, I think. Your PC produces uncompressed PCM audio. There are only 2 ways of getting uncompressed 5.1 sound out from your PC (that I am aware of): HDMI or using the 3 analogue outputs (the green/pink/black ports on the soundcard).

If you want to send 5.1 out via spidif you have to compress it so it fits. That means Dolby Digital Live.

I made the same mistake. The Asus Xonar U7 cost me £70 to fix this problem :(
(it's an awesome soundcard, mind you, I'm not sad I have it, I'm just sad that I had to spend so much money to fix the issue).

 

renegade_officer89

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Apr 25, 2014
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My home theater set only had a HDMI output, sadly, and none of those 3 analogue ports. I have no way of connecting it to my PC other than the aforementioned single cable (which works, strangely) or the TOSLINK. And since money's something I'm rather short at right now, I guess I'll buy that 3.5mm male-to-male cable, but a longer one.

Unless if there's any other solution, then I'm all ears.
 

renegade_officer89

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Apr 25, 2014
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The problem is that I am unable to check the speaker configuration for the sound card, though the card was labeled as a 7.1 capable sound card. I assumed that the setting is automatic. Or am I wrong?
 


The setting isn't automatic so you have to set it through the creative software and most likely Windows too. If you have recently bought the card, I would talk to them about trading it in for a Creative Z card which has the proper components/software.

You bought the wrong HTiB setup too. Always go HDMI inputs/outputs (analog, display port too) that have true discrete surround sound.

The realtek sound chip you can get 7.1 with some configuration but only with 5.1/7.1 analog which your HTiB doesn't support. Most HTiB unfortunately are a piece of crap . The fact that that it doesn't even have a HDMI input is bad.

Mobo manufacturers are somewhat deceptive on their audio abilities in terms of what it can reasonably do. They say it's capable of 5.1/7.1 but in reality they can't because the lack of outputs or licensing agreements with Dolby, DTS and etc.

SPDIF just needs to go away and mobo and sound card manufactures need to stop using it and use more HDMI/Display port.

My rant, be seeing you, the Prisoner...

 

renegade_officer89

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Apr 25, 2014
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Hmm... I think I could make do with what I have right now. It's a bargain buy (at that time) actually, so no problem for me. Found some hacked driver online that enabled Dolby/SRS/DTS Surround functionality. Not really the best, but empty pockets means no new HTiB set yet... Thanks for the advice anyway.
 

renegade_officer89

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Okay. So I have bought an Asus Xonar DS because it has DTS-Connect and other stuff that is similar to DDL. However, I still am unable to listen to 5.1 audio through SPDIF. I feel like I missed something in the settings for it. Any ideas? Below is my settings on the Asus Xonar DS.

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And below is my Windows speaker properties.

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I have no idea what I am doing wrong now. Is there anything I've missed here?
 

renegade_officer89

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But that is an Asus Xonar U7... It has different drivers (I think). That's also DDL, not DTS. Maybe that has anything to do with it? But so far, when I looked at DTS settings, there's always the same selection, but DTS:Interactive or something at the default audio options... Why is that???
 

gopher1369

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I probably wasn't very clear in my previous reply, what I was trying to say was: I have no idea. I assumed it would work the same way as DDL, but obviously not. Which is why I suggested contacting Asus Support directly.

 

vargis14

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Feb 10, 2012
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I have a Creative Sound Blaster Z and I could not be happier with the card. I had my very very old Advent AV570 35 watt each powered partners studio monitors hooked up to my onboard Realtek 889 and I thought they sounded pretty good. Well I was at Microcenter and was looking around and spotted the SoundBlaster Z so I picked up the box and started reading what it could do and then saw the price tag $19.99! Knowing they go for 79-99$ and it was the last one in stock I almost ran to the cashier to buy it. She scanned it and it came up as some older cheapo sound blaster model but it was thrown in the bag.
With excitement I raced the 10 miles home and installed it as fast as I could and hooked up my studio monitors and was literally blown away by the soundstage and sound quality. Knowing it had optical out I raced to my attic and pulled out my very old 60 watt 6.5" Klipsch subwoofer that was part of a 5.1 system and had a optical input so I hooked up that to the Sound Blaster Z and since the Sub has a remote power and volume control it is ideal even though the Studio monitors produce bass pretty darn good nothing beats size and a chamber. But with that remote volume control I can shake the windows in the day, but be quiet at night since low frequency sounds travel so far in the house and the wife would not be happy at all waking up to thumping at 3am. But the combination of the SB Z and my thrown together 15 year old 2.1 system sound absolutely amazing. I think any audiophile would be impressed by the sound put out from such old speakers

I have a LG 34UM95 34" 3440-1440 monitor hooked to SLI'ed EVGA GTX 770 4GB Classified ACX cards that will do SBS cable TV and the computer at the same time and I wanted to use my new/old 2.1 system to listen to TV and was told by a few people that there would be a delay in the sound goind from the optical out on the cable box to the optical in on my SB Z. I had a optical cable and hooked it up and it works flawlessly with absolutely no noticeable delay and lip sync is perfect...but if I turn on the monitors speakers and combine it with the 2.1 system it has a very very slight Hollow sound so it does have a tiny bit of delay but it is not noticeable at all when just using the 2.1 SB Z solution.

I have a favor to ask for EVERYONE with a inexpensive ASUS Zonar series sound card since they are much cheaper than a Sound Blaster Z if you could please hook up a cable box optical out to your computer and watch TV and see if lip sync is correct for me? I would be very grateful for some insight on whether or not the cheaper ASUS Zonar solutions could work on my 2 HTPC's so I do not purchase a Zonar card and just have to return it with nothing wrong with it besides it will not playback optical in with a small enough delay that lip sync when watching TV is not noticeable at all. Thanks very much ahead of time for anyone that is already doing this or attempts it for me.