Sound Card - Optical Out - Australia

[oz_surfer]

I am looking to purchase a sound card with an optical out port for my pc that is hooked up to the plasma.

I want this so that i can link the pc to a set of surround sound speakers and amp.

I want to do this because my room layout dictates that rear wireless speakers are more suitable.

The guys at JB-HiFi, Harvey Norman and the Good Guys say that the optical input on the amp will recognise the pc optical output.

The speakers i am looking at are the vertical ones (about 75 - 100cm) high.

Do you forsee any problems with linking pc to amp using optical out.

[johns0]

Should be no problems.I output my sound card thu spdif to my video card and then dvi to hdmi and coax output from my hdtv to my receiver.Optical out from sound card is much easier but no optical out on mine.

[fritzi93]

I have the same setup, coax digital audio from HDTV to receiver.

It's simple that way. All sources first connected to the HDTV normally. Change source from, e.g. Blu-Ray player, to cable box, to HTPC, it all runs through the amp with no fiddling. Nor does the amp need to be always on if at times the HDTV speakers are enough.

[johns0]

Only thing is the audio is downmixed when going from the tv coax out,its no longer digital dolby at least on my setup.

[fritzi93]

Yeah, I have 2/0 stereo only, a couple of old-fashioned big a$$ Sony speakers, probably 30 years old but still okay. And my hearing isn't what it used to be, so who cares? :P

But I do have optical out on the HDTV and optical in on the receiver, just haven't bothered to hook them up.

[redwudz]

Optical out and coax out is the same signal, S/PDIF, AFAIK. Some MBs have the S/PDIF connector on board and you can hook that to a RCA jack on a PCI card slot cover and output that to your surround amp. If you need optical from the S/PDIF, then you need a converter, which is often also mounted on a PCI card slot cover. It just needs some power for the output LED, in addition to the S/PDIF input. Check your MB manufacturer and they may have it available. I've used a Asus S/PDIF PCI slot optical converter with several MBs that have S/PDIF and a +5VDC source on the S/PDIF MB connector. For short S/PDIF runs, about any RCA cable will work, doesn't need to be RF coaxial.

EDIT: Just to add, 6.1 sounds so much better than stereo with most movies. If you have a decent center channel speaker, the dialog will come from that. A subwoofer will add greatly to the background effect, even a low power one. And the rear surround speakers will really add to the surround effect, especially on some movies that take good advantage of the separate channels.

[MysticE]

I want to do this because my room layout dictates that rear wireless speakers are more suitable.

All the ones I've seen should be called semi-wireless. You still have to connect them to each other with wire and you need to plug in a power supply.