Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler MZero and M1ti

Durned if I know. Probably fits on the card better. I'm pretty sure that those silly little 4.1/5.1 speaker systems for computers have miniplug digital ins. There are stereo and mono miniplugs, and the only thing you'd need for digital would be a mono one. Again, this is mostly conjecture.

Do a search for a chaintech AV-710. I think that's the model number, it has an optical out on it.

Spiff...how about this?

So you can get an optical output on a $24 card, but not on a $200 sound blaster. That's just wrong.

I have a feeling they didn't have enough room on the PCB (printed circuit board) to mount a standard RCA jack.

Anyone able to confirm that a mini-to-RCA adapter is all I'd need to use the Soundblaster digital output with my reciever?

Spiff - Did a search on google and there were a few people on a forum that stated that they had successfully done this using the mini-to-coax adapter. However, depending on your budget, don't be in a rush to buy the more expensive card. I cannot speak to quality differences between the two cards, but I can tell you that I am presently using an 4.1 card w/ a toslink connection that was not a high-end card when I bought it. This card passes a Dolby Digital signal just fine. Bear in mind, when you use the digital out and have the card set to output SPDIF, it's passing the digital audio stream straight out to the receiver. I'm not saying that you should find a 4.1 card. I'm just letting you know that the sound card isn't doing much of anything when you're dealing with digital output.

Caveat: There are arguments over at the AVS forums about this very issue. Many invest big bucks in sweet cards and swear that the sound is superior. Others believe that it is a simple pass-through.

Good Luck

Thanks for the tips guys.

I have the cheap chaintech card and I can tell you that it works very well.

Craig, or instead consider using this for a direct connection out the USB port.