Terratec Aureon 7.1 with DDL vs Soundstorm mobo

[mancubas]

Hi,

If this question has been asked before I apologys, all my searching and reading is not really asking this question.

I currently have the ABIT NF7 mobo which does not have the Soundstorm , I am wanting to use this system as a HTPC so my question, Is the Terratec Aureon 7.1 PCI with Dolby Digital Live superior than the Soundstorm available on the ABIT AN7 mobo which is still available and works out cheaper than buying this soundcard.

Shall be using the above system with a proper Mission 5.1 speaker system and a Marantz 6200 AV Receiver & a new LG 32LX2R 32" LCD .

Hope you guys can help.


ManC

 

[meansizzler]

Well the DD Live 7.1 will give you up to 7.1 audo, so it will make games sound better than your built in soundcard....but you have to use the optical/coaxial output ...

 

[avanzato]

Why do you want the DD Live encoding?

For a HTPC you'd use either a SPDIF out to the amp so the amp does the decoding or the analogue outs if you're using a software DD decoder.

 

[mancubas]

Having done a bit more reading up I have realised for DVD playback (main usage) all I want to acheive is DD5.1 passthrough, I would only want to do DDL when I was playing a game that only outputed 2channels which I wanted to convert to 5.1.

Thanks for the replies.

ManC

 

[avanzato]

I understood that DD Live encodes the 3D game sound to a digital bitstreem for your amp to decode. That's the same game sound you can get from the analogue outs on the Mobo, does your amp have a 5.1 analogue input? If Live creates 5.1 from 2 channel then it'll use Prologic 2 or similar, does your amp have prologic 2?

 

[mancubas]

Hi,

My understanding is that DDL takes a stereo audio feed (from where ever) and alters it to a 5.1 digital (process done by mobo) feed and outputs it through the optical out on the mobo, the amp would see this as a Dolby 5.1 feed and output accordingly via all 5.1 speakers as if it was a 5.1 feed from a dvd-player.

I have done a bit more reading up now and it seems as thou the Terratec drivers are'nt really up to scratch so I have gone OFF the idea of this soundcard and my budget wont extend to the HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 Gold PCI Dolby Soundcard which is suppose to be fabulous. It actually works out cheaper to upgrade to the ABIT AN7, this has established drivers and loads of support on varous forums so I may do this and flog my ABIT NF7.

ManC

 

[james.miller]

DDlive takes any multi channel source and encoded it into 5.1 Dolby Digital, not 7.1. 7.1 is only supported thru the analogue hookups.

 

[avanzato]

You can get what I've been told are Dolby Live encoding cards for about £22 on ebay, if you haven't bought the new mobo yet.
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2603063#post2603063

 

[mancubas]

I've already ordered the ABIT AN7 now and it should arrive this Thurs... but I do need the SATA controller which my current mobo does not provide...

If you've ordered this card would you mind posting here how you found the installation and indeed the DDL if possible, for the money it looks amazing.


ManC

 

[dannyg81]

I've just installed a Terratec 7.1 into my HTPC and it's a really great card, it encodes any non AC3 stream into full 5.1 AC3, which my amps picks up and then feeds it to my speakers. I will say though that this card isn't the greatest for Games, but as long as you disable any 3D hardware or EAX settings in the game, you'll still get far better positional sound than software/Hardware 3D or EAX processing.