Connecting a Home Theater System to Sound Card

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KornNut

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I am having trouble connecting my sound card to my home theater system. My main priority is to play music files from my PC to my home theater system, but I also want to play doom 3 and Far Cry with the surround sound.

The sound blaster has the headphone/computer speaker outputs and the "Digital Out for 5.1 support (6-channel SPDIF output to Creative digital speakers)". I believed that the 'digital output' is a digital coaxial output but it doesn't connect to my dig. coax cable.

(1.) What kind of connection is this "digital output"?

(2.) If this connection is not a digital coaxial cable output, is there an adapter that I can get? I have heard of adapters that allowed you to use analog cables, but I don't want to lose the EAX sound qaulity and the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.

(3.) What connections are on this cable?

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=16&product=33&nav=features

Is this cable an adapter for the "digital connection" in the back of the sound card to optical cable connection on the recieiver?

(4.) Should I go out and buy the platinum expansion to the sound blaster?

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=16&product=30





My computer and home theater specs are below:

I have a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Card:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=29-102-162&depa=0

^^^ This is the PCI slot sound card only. This is NOT the platinum edition that comes with angalog and optical cable inputs/outputs.

I also have this for a home theater System:

Kenwood Reciever with the following connections:
3 optical cable inputs (5.1)
2 digitial coaxial cable inputs (5.1)
8 RCA analog audio inputs

And for those who are curious:
Bose Center channel speaker
JBL 250W subwoofer
(2) 3 Way, 3 Driver Floor-Standing Sony Speakers
Kenwood Surround speakers

I also have the following cables:
- 12'' digital coaxial cable
- 25'' analog RCA cables
- 3'' optical cables

I would have to buy a longer optical cable which is no biggie since theyre only 4 + S/H.



If you're responding, please explain where you got your information and what kind of sound card set up that you have please.

All responses are greatly appreciated.
 
ok i have spent a lot of time on this foprum on how to connect my home theater system to it, a panasonic sc-ht900. At first i had it connected to the green jack on my sound card with a y plug to the left/right input in the receiver, but this was only stereo. The cable u put a link to is an optical cable. What i did was buy a audigy 2 zs platinum and connected my receiver from the optical input to the optical output in the audigy 2 drive. The thing u need to know about the optical, is that it will play however the sound track was encoded. If it was encoded in stereo, it will play stereo, if it was encoded in dolby didgital surround it will playu it like that. What you can do also, which will be easier to get surround is connect your analigic dins to ur sound card. the left/right speakers go in the green, the sub/center in black, and the rear left/right in the other one. One other thing u need to know is that in the creative sound mixer, when u play the test thing, it isnt encoded in 6 channels, so with the optical cable u will only get sound out of the left and right. But in dvd movies with dobly digital, u will get surround sound. The easiest way is to connect to the analogic dins on the receiver.
 
i got most of that on the creative support emailing, but a lot from these forums, go look in my thread about surround sound system, itl be helpfull
 
... I would have posted this in your thread but it seemed as if people were going a little off topic (which is no problem since you fixed your problem) and I didn't think my message would fit in.

U-Toast said:
The thing u need to know about the optical, is that it will play however the sound track was encoded. If it was encoded in stereo, it will play stereo, if it was encoded in dolby didgital surround it will playu it like that.

My Reciever allows me to set the input to one of the following settings:

analog
digital-auto
digital-manual
complete manual

With the digital-auto, it will automatically read the encoded sound and play it in that format.

With the Digital-manual, it will be going through the digital connection but I have control over which channels and sound coding even if it is encoded. For instance, I can take a stereo sound and put it out for a 'circle suround' set up or I can take a Dolby Digital DTS sound and downgrade it to stereo.

So there shouldn't be any problem there.

Were you able to buy the I/O platinum drive seperately from the PCI card sound blaster?
http://images10.newegg.com/productimage/29-102-163-07.JPG

and

Do you think that the adapter from Creative will work rather than buying the drive:

http://us.creative.com/products/pro...33&nav=features
 
i just bought the audigy 2 zs platinum it came with the drive, and the cable u posted earlier is a optical cable, u need the drive for it, but i would just recommend using the analogic dins, its easier, and u cant really tell a difference in the sound. All you need are y cable were u can plug the rca into, and then plug into ur sound card.

But yes u can buy the drive separatly from creative.com, but its up to u, u can make it work as it is now.
 
toslink cables are optical cables, the miniplug, i have no idea. how mny rca cables u got? all u need is 3, wait is ur setup a 5.1 or 7.1? optical is pure 5.1 but not 7.1
 
I am only using it for a 5.1 HT system. I bought the 7.1 card (which is compatable with 5.1) for future expansion.

I wish that creative had more details on their acessories online.
 
lol, ok here are the options u have:

Use 6 rca cables with 3 y link things from rca to minijacks. front l/r go in green, center/sur in black and rears in last one.

Use optical cable with the drive

Use coaxial cable from receiver to sound card.
 
IF I used the 6 RCA cables, I would be losing SSSSSSOOOOOOO much sound quality which would be contradicting the reason why I bought a good quality sound card. On top of that, it would also be coming in on stereo.

Are you saying that there is a digital coaxial cable hook up in the sound card?

and

Are you also saying that the Toslink to miniplug adapter won't work??? Its an adapter sold by Creative that is made for the
Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS Card. I don't see how it won't work when it will go from the reciever connection (opitcal) to the sound card (miniplug). It will give me full digital sound and for a much cheaper price.
 
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