creative soundcard connection help

[Greg Hook]

Hi

I have just got a projector and am experimenting with connecting to my PC. That is going OK but now I need to get the sound to my Denon 3802 amp.

I have a Creative Labs Live value sound card.

One of the connections from the sound card is labelled digital out and is the standard 3.5mm jack size. Is this called sp/dif?

How do I go about getting the digital sound from the sound card to my amp?

Thanks
Greg

 

[nutcase_1uk]

IIRC you need a mono 3.5mm to single RCA cable (assuming you're going to use coaxial input). Not sure on that tho as I've always used a hoontech board with my SBlive.

 

[Greg Hook]

Thanks for that.

Any ideas where I can get one?

All the ones I can find are 1 x 3.5mm plug to 2 x RCA/phono instead of just one to one.

Thanks
Greg

 

[Canoehq]

Just one note of caution.

I was reading over on AVS Forums that the voltage out from a Creative SB Live card was unreliable and higher than standard. Reports suggest that it was, on occasion, frying amplifiers.

I don't know if it is true or not but you may want to do a little more reading before you connect it all up and 'go live' as it were.

HTH

Canoehq

 

[rob_w]

I use the 5.1 live card in my setup, and it hasn't cooked my amp yet. I use a standard 3.5mm to 2xphono. Set digital out only in the audio hq panel, and one phono has pcm stereo on it, the other has d digital.

hth

Rob

 

[spamboy]

www.maplin.co.uk do a mono one. I've got one, it works fine.

 

[Crocodile JD]

Hi chaps

I had a Mono jack to RCA adapter and bits arrived yesterday. So last night I tried to get some sound out, no joy.

I set the DVD software (Power DVD) to SPDIF out and I set the Creative software that came with the card to Digital Out in the Audio HQ. I also enabled the DVD drive for digital out (I think ). I put a 2 way connection from the DVD drive to the sound card digital in, as well as the standard cable. I put the jack into the yellow SPDIF hole on the card, and the other end into the dvd coax in on the amp. I set the DVD in on the amp to Auto (which according to manual gives priority to coax over optical).

I tried a few different things but I'm not good on computers so I was stabbing in the dark TBH.

I was using a non specific core and braid type shielded phono lead. Do I need something different?

Apologies for the naivety, any help would be much appreciated

Crocodile JD

 

[sounddog]

I think you need a stereo mini-jack to 2x phonos.

Certainly the cable I have that came for connecting the SB Live to a Cambridge Soundworks digi-theatre speaker thing has stereo socket.

I think you will have to experiment on weather the bitscream signal for DD is out the left or right connector ... I believe the other has digital PCM for the rear channels when using 4ch EAX.


Victoria

 

[Crocodile JD]

Hi Sounddog

You may be right if you are decoding on board, but with an external decoder I think you only need the mono (i.e. 2 way) cable to carry bitstream? Could be wrong tho.

Crocodile JD

 

[Crocodile JD]

Hi Sounddog

You may be right if you are decoding on board, but with an external decoder I think you only need the mono (i.e. 2 way) cable to carry bitstream? Could be wrong tho.

Crocodile JD

 

[sounddog]

I'll try an check the cable I've got at home tonight ... will buzz it out on the multimeter if I can find it (the cable that is not the multimeter).

I'm pretty sure though that you need a stereo - 2x phono cause the Creative Soundblaster connector has 2x digital signals in 1 connector and if you plug a mono connector in you'll be shorting the 2 digitals together.

[Edit] I've got the original SB Live board (not the 5.1 version) so there is no facility to decode onboard. The new version may use a different connector though so I may be talking irrelevance here.

Victoria

 

[sounddog]

I didn't get to buzz the cable out (can't find the multimeter) but this should help you ...

http://dmzweb4.europe.creative.com/...30,E=0000000000017707649,K=431,Sxi=3,Case=obj(2795)

It states "Alternatively, if it’s an SB Live! 1024, or indeed an SB Live! Platinum, use a 3.5mm stereo minijack from the yellow digital output connector (positioned at the top of the backplate of the card) to the white RCA of a red/white pair of RCA inputs."

So as I said ... needs a stereo mini-jack


Edit ... sorry don't think that link works ... but goto Creative's knowledge base and it's Solution ID 2795.

 

[EffTee]

Hi All,

Just to add my view to this - I connected the Sb Live value card in my Fathers PC to his Dolby Digital processor last weekend. I made up a mono 3.5mm Jack to phono lead using a bit of old coxial we had hanging around. It was very easy to do - I'm no techy

According to the Creative website support section you can use the left channel of a stereo lead.

As regards settings for software, etc what Crocodile did seems spot on. Spdif in software player and spdif in the creative surround mixer software. DVD drive settings and cables have no bearing as data is transferred over the PCI bus (I think???), not via any cabling.

Anyway, hope this helps.

EffTee

 

[sounddog]

Weather you need a mono or stereo mini-jack seams to depend on if you have a SB Live or the SB Live 5.1 - the later cards seam to use a mono jack where as the earlier ones use a mono jack. And as for what an Audidy needs ... well someone else can find that out on Creative Lab's website.


Victoria.

 

[Crocodile JD]

Thanks EffTee I'm encouraged by that. I think I'll try taking the Creative software off and reloading it.

Thanks Sounddog, I think your last post is right assuming you ment earlier cards use a stereo jack. I think that's because with the earlier cards, i.e. not 5.1, the digital reference on those is for PCM stereo. Times that by 2 for a 4 speaker set up and using on board processing you get some sort of sound steering. I think in the case of 5.1 its a digital bitstream which can all pass down a 2 way, cable via. a mono jack. I don't think your card will produce a bitstream hence the difference.

Anyway, only my layman understanding (if correct?) but I can tell you for sure, the thing still don't work!

Crocodile JD