chuckalicious
Established Member
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2004
- Messages
- 247
- Reaction score
- 4
- Points
- 62
Okay, trying to make a decision on sound cards, but need to check something first....
From some of the most basic cards, up to the highest spec Sound Blasters, they all have spdif outputs of some description, some coax, some optical, some 3.5mm (I only just discovered the 3.5mm to Coax converter!!).
Now, on the Sound Blaster website, it shows a comparison of their cards, and they sound formats they can deal with, such as DTS EX, DTS Neo etc, and only the high end ones can do that.
Now I'm a little confused. My intention is to pass all sound from my PC (running MCE 2005) to my AV amp via digital coax, with no processing done on the PC (just using the SPDIF option in all available settings). Because this should only be passing an AC3 data stream (is that correct?), should it matter what the sound card is capable of decoding? I.E. if I put a DTS DVD in and play it, should I get a DTS signal to my amp whether I'm using a £25 or a £95 card?
I have an HDA X-Mystique card which although is a stunning card, I'm having terrible driver problems with it, so was wondering if an el-cheapo card would do the same job for a fraction of the price or hair loss.
Cheers all
From some of the most basic cards, up to the highest spec Sound Blasters, they all have spdif outputs of some description, some coax, some optical, some 3.5mm (I only just discovered the 3.5mm to Coax converter!!).
Now, on the Sound Blaster website, it shows a comparison of their cards, and they sound formats they can deal with, such as DTS EX, DTS Neo etc, and only the high end ones can do that.
Now I'm a little confused. My intention is to pass all sound from my PC (running MCE 2005) to my AV amp via digital coax, with no processing done on the PC (just using the SPDIF option in all available settings). Because this should only be passing an AC3 data stream (is that correct?), should it matter what the sound card is capable of decoding? I.E. if I put a DTS DVD in and play it, should I get a DTS signal to my amp whether I'm using a £25 or a £95 card?
I have an HDA X-Mystique card which although is a stunning card, I'm having terrible driver problems with it, so was wondering if an el-cheapo card would do the same job for a fraction of the price or hair loss.
Cheers all