Potentially Noobish Question.... Please Enlighten Me!!!

Alty · 7 May 2006 at 04:09

Using soundcards with digital out and connecting them to speaker setups such as the logitech z-5500 (purely as an example) - is the processing done by the amp associated with the speakers (located in the sub) instead of the processor on the sound card?

The reason for asking is that I have just purchased an X-Fi Fatal1ty and have a rather nice PURE Digital Digitheatre 5.1 speaker set that I want to use. However, if the signal is going to go straight to the speakers and be processed by the PURE Digital amp then was the X-Fi essentially a wasted purchase?

With outputting a pure digital signal - what part of the sound system actually does the processing?

fish99 · 7 May 2006 at 10:13

Firstly it's worth pointing out the X-Fi doesn't do DD encoding (called DD Live), so it'll only give you surround sound through digital if the source is already DD encoded, like a DVD. It won't give you surround sound in games.

Assuming you are watching a movie though, then yes, the decoder used is located in the sub. X-Fi can do DD decoding but that would only be useful if you were using analogue output. With digital out I think the X-Fi would decode the signal and then output it in stereo. So you definitely want to use the decoder in the speakers, or switch to analogue.

Alty · 7 May 2006 at 11:24

Analogue output meaning a single spdif cable I presume and not 2 phono cables(or single 3 1/5mm jack to 2 phono)?

PieMaster · 7 May 2006 at 12:57

Analogue output would be 3 miniplugs.

Anything over SPDIF is some form of digital, whether its PCM, Dolby Digital or DTS.