Does the creative xfi card do 7.1 audio?

[yoda313]

I have the creative xfi soundblaster card. I don't have the exact model number in front of me. Does the xfi series in general do 7.1 sound?

The reason I ask is I only have a 5.1 sony amp for my regular home theater speakers. I had not considered using the pc for bluray/hddvd playback. I do have a lg bluray rom and the xbox 360 hddvd addon unit that can connect to the pc.

For testing purposes I am not sure how to proceed. It only has the standard headphone size jack adpaters though it does have spdif and fiber optic output. I have a logitech 5.1 speaker set I use with my emachine pc (currently only in 2.1 mode since I don't watch movies on that machine).

Would it be feasible to test 7.1 with the 5.1 set and an extra standard stereo set?

Also what is the standard 7.1 speaker arrangement? Is it with four speakers in the rear arranged in a semi circle?

Also I am concerned about sound quality in a living room enviornment versus a computer room mode set for stereo vs surround sound. The logitech set I am using is quite good but I don't think the rear speakers are very loud and don't have an independent volume setting (on the speakers themselves, of course software volume settings can be used).

I will check out the pc and see what options I do have.

My main concern is that using pc speakers for a regular movie would not be ideal for playback compared to the regular speakers I use for the 5.1 sony amp.

Would there be a way to connect regular stereo speakers (the kind with the regular speaker wire, not headphone jack size) to a computer without blowing something up? Something like a bridge to the speakers?

I do have individual input jacks on my sony amp but only in 5.1 mode so even I did connect the output to the sony amp it could only process six channels.


EDIT - I did turn on my vista pc with the creative xfi card and it does have 7.1 output available. It has a 7.1 option for speaker configuration. Now I need to figure out how to connect them.

Edit 2 - Ok I dug up the installation guide that came with my sound card. I still don't have a model number yet - sorry.

It shows the four ports it has - the three for surround, center/sub, front speakers and the digital i/o jack I use for my spdif/coax output. WHat it also shows is a special three to four jack cable for connecting to a speaker set.

Is this something that only comes with a combined 7.1 speaker set that is specially designed for 7.1? Can you can get that seperately so you can connect them to independent speaker sets? Because as far as I know I did not get one of those cable splitters. Because the diagram clearly shows it going from the three jacks on the soundcard to four jacks on the speaker set (the subwoofer base that has all the input jacks on the surround set).

I already have a 5.1 set and have extra stereo speakers. I don't want to buy a 7.1 set if I can help it. Can I do this with what I have?

[yoda313]

Ok I haven't bought anything yet.

I did go to creative's website for their accessory page. THey have a 3 to 8 jack adapter available. However it goes from the three headphone jacks from the soundcard to rca plugs that you'd use for a analog input on a digital amp. My sony has it but of course it only does 5.1 not 7.1 which is what I'm after.

Logistically I'm not sure how to go about this.

Do they make 7.1 sound cards with dedicated output jacks for center, sub and both rear sides? My problem is going beyond 5.1. I can do 5.1 just fine. But I need the proper cable to get correct access to the extra rear outputs...... Because as mentioned I don't have a 7.1 pc speaker system just a 5.1. I'm wanting to use my 5.1 in conjunction with a standard 2.0 set to make up the extra rear speakers in the 7.1 configuration.....

[johns0]

I got a x-fi fatality and it has settings to go up to 7.1,i just got 5.1 speakers but it will do 7.1 which is 2 front,2 side,2 rear and center.Its got green,black and orange inputs for the speakers.You need to get a cable splitter to go to the extra 2 speakers which i believe are on the center input when using 7.1.

[yoda313]

Thanks johns0.

The only thing is though I need the three way to get the sides. A two way one does the center/sub just fine but won't extract the side rears.

It had occured to me I could send the 5.1 to the amp with the analog inputs and then do the extra two as computer speakers perhaps.

I'm still not sure what the best way to do this is without getting "official dedicated" 7.1 speakers.... Also there is the whole issue of volume balancing which would get tricky when you're not using a matched speaker set...

Edit -

I got it going!

Well sort of.

I remembered I had bought the analog cables to take my zune and hook it up to a tv. Its a headphone jack splitter that goes from headphone jack to three rca plugs (video and left and right audio). Once I remembered that I got it out and hooked it up to one of the two output jacks that contain the embedded side channels. IT WORKED!

I went to bestbuy and got some no name versions of the same cable and hooked them up to the rear and center/sub ports. The front port only has the front left and right so it doesn't need a three way splitter.

The only trick now is to get the matching right. I'll have to work on it some more but I have sound going to all the speakers.

At the moment I'm using unpowered speakers from the rear set of my logitech desktop pc surround set. They use the rca plug jack and are independent of a 2.1 speaker system. However they are not amplified. SO I'll have to round up some of my regular speakers for that task.

Edit - Oct 3rd 11:30pm -

Ok I am nearly there. I have actually resurrected my first surround sound amplifier. It is an NEC adapter that connects to a normal stereo to produce pre prologic dolby surround sound. I am using it to power real speakers I am using for the side channels. It works! I haven't used it in ages and didn't even know for sure if it still worked. It does. The only downside to this is it won't adjust volume automatically with the main amp obviously - that would have to be done in tandem.

I also have to adjust the rear and sub output levels to make sure I'm getting the most out of those. I do have a thx sound configuration utility that came with my creative xfi card. However it is getting quite late and I'll have to tackle that tomorrow.

For right now it looks like I'm all systems go for having a full 7.1 sound system - slightly augmented. So the pc is connected to the hdtv, the soundcard is setup with 5.1 analog going to the analog input jacks on the sony 5.1 amp. I then have the side rear channels shunted to the spare amp to power regular stereo speakers to act as the side speakers in the 7.1 configuration.

One thing that will be interesting is how the setup will correspond to a 6.1 source - there are a few regular dvds that are encoded in 6.1 aren't they? Isn't the extended set of Lord of the Rings in 6.1?. I have the four rear speakers setup in a roughly semi circle setup as recommended - technically however the two "main" rear speakers are parrallel to the rear wall and the two "side" channels are 90 degrees to that - more like a half box than a circle.

I am looking forward to doing a full power test tomorrow. Unfortunately it seems like my only full 7.1 sources are my original Six Star Trek bluray discs. Those will have to do for now. Suprisingly none of my hddvds are in 7.1 - not even the Matrix set....

Also since this kind of hacked I am truly getting dolby ex and dts hd and all the "extra" stuff since this is being pumped out in analog mode without the need for a seperate processor? The soundcard is doing all the decoding work internally right? The sound is being output in its final form to the speakers and the regular 5.1 amp plus the extra addition I added are merely reproducing what is given to them right? So I should technically even be able to do a pro logic 2 setup right? Could that mean I can get pro logic two with my letterbox original star wars dvds that they released with the laserdisc dub they did? That should be better than the plain stereo that it was encoded with right?