HTPC soundcard confusion?

[pullet_surprise]

Hello All,

Ive just built an HTPC and Im struggling somewhat to (apart from getting any sound) understand the best options for sound. I want to output sound from the pc via the soundcard into my all in one panasonic sc-pt550 suuround sound. This has optical in and aux x2?

I have two soundcards, an audigy SB0090 and a trust 5.1 SC-5250 I bought the trust because it had optical out perfect for the audio in on the panasonic? The audigy souncard has a jack plug called digital out which I could connect to the panasonic using a jack to 2 x co-axial to aux. So my two questions are :

1. How do I get sound from the scpt 550 using optical out to optical in?
2. Which is better optical to optical or digital to auxillary?




Spec

Thermaltake Bach VC8001BNS
Chieftec 350W Standard ATX PSII
Athlon x64 3500+
Nvidia GT 7600GT
Elixir PC5300 DDRII 1GB x 2
MSI K9MM-V
Trust 5.1 SC-5250 or SB Audigy?
Vista 64 ultimate

[MikeK]

The digital out on the Audigy card is designed to connect to a Creative dongle, which then features the various SPDIF digital inputs and outputs (both optical and coaxial). The dongle was always an optional extra - and AFAIK wasn't even officially made available in the UK.
You can't connect this to the AUX inputs of your speaker system - not familiar with your speaker set, but the AUX inputs are normally for stereo analogue input from a CD player etc.


Personally I'd forget the Audigy and use your Trust soundcard, connected with an optical cable from optical out to your speaker set's optical input - but throw away the driver CD (basically they are pants) and use Dogbert's driver, available here

http://code.google.com/p/cmediadrivers/

[Erazerhead]

Originally Posted by pullet_surprise

Hello All,
1. How do I get sound from the scpt 550 using optical out to optical in?
2. Which is better optical to optical or digital to auxillary?

Audigy does not have optical only digital (electrical).
If your panasononic has only digital-optical in and the rest of inputs is analog then you won't be able to connect this digitally. If the aux inputs are digital then you can.