PC Audio to Surround Amp - SPDIF?
Discussion
Hi there!
The wife's old desktop is being replaced but it's still more than pokey enough for Half-Life 2 etc and it's had the last few years of old hard drives wedged in it, so I plan to use it as a media center/ server. It will live behind the TV and connected to it via a standard vga cable for the display (TV ran out of HDMIs ages ago). I have a Sherwood surround amp which has the Xbox and digi box/DVD player connected via optical - so these are used up. I noticed it has 2 co-ax digital audio inputs.
The PC in question only has on board sound, so it has the three 3.5mm sockets on the back. The software mentions enabling SPDIF, at roughly 20Hz or 40kHz or something.
Can I simply get a 3.5mm headphone to RCA phono cable and use this from PC to amp?
Any advice welcomed. Thanks.
The wife's old desktop is being replaced but it's still more than pokey enough for Half-Life 2 etc and it's had the last few years of old hard drives wedged in it, so I plan to use it as a media center/ server. It will live behind the TV and connected to it via a standard vga cable for the display (TV ran out of HDMIs ages ago). I have a Sherwood surround amp which has the Xbox and digi box/DVD player connected via optical - so these are used up. I noticed it has 2 co-ax digital audio inputs.
The PC in question only has on board sound, so it has the three 3.5mm sockets on the back. The software mentions enabling SPDIF, at roughly 20Hz or 40kHz or something.
Can I simply get a 3.5mm headphone to RCA phono cable and use this from PC to amp?
Any advice welcomed. Thanks.
Yep you can split a 3.5mm headphone to RCA phono cable, I've got one for my old portable media player into my Marantz Consolette.
I used to enabling SPDIF on my media centre sound card and cabled this to the Amp as the SPDIF was exporting Dolby Digital and the Amp was converting it to the 5.1 speaker. Export the highest sample rate your Amp will support usual 48kHz (Dat quality) or 44.1kHZ used in CD.
I used to enabling SPDIF on my media centre sound card and cabled this to the Amp as the SPDIF was exporting Dolby Digital and the Amp was converting it to the 5.1 speaker. Export the highest sample rate your Amp will support usual 48kHz (Dat quality) or 44.1kHZ used in CD.
I'm sure you are aware..in case...
SP/DIF stands for SonyPhilipsDigitalInterFace. Physically the same as RCA (i.e. plugs will plug in) but electrically different. As you have suggested, you'll need to turn one of your 3.5mm jacks into an SP/DIF port and then plug that into the amp. I must say I've never heard of this, might be worth just checking you do not have an RCA output on the motherboard.
An alternative would be to buy a soundcard, if you get one with DTS connect or the DD equivelant you can get the sound card to convert the surround sound from your computer into DTS, so you can play games in DTS surround sound, which is cool.
You might have some trouble with actually getting your computer to pass DTS or DD sound out. Older versions of VLC used to allow you to change the output format; to pass-through you selected 'A/52 over SPDIF' and you'd get the bit-stream audio out. For god-knows what reason that has been removed in recent versions so it's all difficult now...see this thread:
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&...
P.S. of course you can go 3.5mm to left and right RCA and into the amp, but that would be analogue stereo only.
SP/DIF stands for SonyPhilipsDigitalInterFace. Physically the same as RCA (i.e. plugs will plug in) but electrically different. As you have suggested, you'll need to turn one of your 3.5mm jacks into an SP/DIF port and then plug that into the amp. I must say I've never heard of this, might be worth just checking you do not have an RCA output on the motherboard.
An alternative would be to buy a soundcard, if you get one with DTS connect or the DD equivelant you can get the sound card to convert the surround sound from your computer into DTS, so you can play games in DTS surround sound, which is cool.
You might have some trouble with actually getting your computer to pass DTS or DD sound out. Older versions of VLC used to allow you to change the output format; to pass-through you selected 'A/52 over SPDIF' and you'd get the bit-stream audio out. For god-knows what reason that has been removed in recent versions so it's all difficult now...see this thread:
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&...
P.S. of course you can go 3.5mm to left and right RCA and into the amp, but that would be analogue stereo only.
Thanks for the replies.
It's a little confusing as my laptop deffo has SPDIF written by it's head phone socket and a quick Google suggests it's got a little light at the end of the port itself and you use a kinda 3.5mm style optical cable thing. I don't know if this is true (I can't see the red light as the article suggests) and if the laptop is sending a digital signal but not in an optical format. In theory this doesn't sound difficult.
The PC in question does not have anything other than microphone, line in and line out, but no markings for SPDIF, but is is mentioned in the aoftware which came with the motherboard (sound deck) so in theory it should know what it's talking about!
I suppose the answer is to try it. On a phono to headphone jack digital lead then, is it 'left' or 'right' that is used for the signal, or both?!
It's a little confusing as my laptop deffo has SPDIF written by it's head phone socket and a quick Google suggests it's got a little light at the end of the port itself and you use a kinda 3.5mm style optical cable thing. I don't know if this is true (I can't see the red light as the article suggests) and if the laptop is sending a digital signal but not in an optical format. In theory this doesn't sound difficult.
The PC in question does not have anything other than microphone, line in and line out, but no markings for SPDIF, but is is mentioned in the aoftware which came with the motherboard (sound deck) so in theory it should know what it's talking about!
I suppose the answer is to try it. On a phono to headphone jack digital lead then, is it 'left' or 'right' that is used for the signal, or both?!
ash73 said:
PCs can pass through pre-encoded 5.1 audio such as DVDs via S/PDIF, but only high-end sound cards will encode PC sound (game SFX etc) in real-time.
It is possible to squeeze three channels through uncompressed by tweaking the settings, my home cinema PC outputs left/right/centre via S/PDIF using a basic soundblaster card (and then duplicates to the rear channel via dolby prologic) but it took a lot of faffing. For films I use VLC 2.0.8 to pass through pre-encoded 5.1 audio via S/PDIF.
These days you might be better off hooking them up via HDMI?
It is possible to squeeze three channels through uncompressed by tweaking the settings, my home cinema PC outputs left/right/centre via S/PDIF using a basic soundblaster card (and then duplicates to the rear channel via dolby prologic) but it took a lot of faffing. For films I use VLC 2.0.8 to pass through pre-encoded 5.1 audio via S/PDIF.
These days you might be better off hooking them up via HDMI?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MUSE-HiFi-PCM2704-USB-to...
varsas said:
I'm sure you are aware..in case...
SP/DIF stands for SonyPhilipsDigitalInterFace. Physically the same as RCA (i.e. plugs will plug in) but electrically different. As you have suggested, you'll need to turn one of your 3.5mm jacks into an SP/DIF port and then plug that into the amp. I must say I've never heard of this, might be worth just checking you do not have an RCA output on the motherboard.
S/PDIF can be optical or coax. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIFSP/DIF stands for SonyPhilipsDigitalInterFace. Physically the same as RCA (i.e. plugs will plug in) but electrically different. As you have suggested, you'll need to turn one of your 3.5mm jacks into an SP/DIF port and then plug that into the amp. I must say I've never heard of this, might be worth just checking you do not have an RCA output on the motherboard.
As mentioned above, SPDIF can be connected over optical or via a traditional wire.
Optical usually has a Toslink style plug, but many laptops (and Mac Mini's) to save space will double up the optical post with the headphone jack. Ebay is your friend here, with many optical 'headphone' jack to toslink type cables going for couple of quid.
Electronic SPDIF is usually over an RCA phono plug (and a 75 Ohm coax cable, but you can generally make do with any old cable to a degree). On a sound card, they may however use a 3.5mm jack and so you'll need a mono 3.5mm to phono cable.
However some sound cards & motherboard may not present the spdif out the back by default and need an additional backing plate, with a little cable that runs internally to some jumpers on the motherboard or sound card. Looks a bit like this:-
http://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachme...
The one pictured presents an optical and electric SPDIF plugs, giving you the choice to use either, both will do exactly the same and software wise treated as the same output.
Electronic SPDIF usually supports higher sample rates (beyond 96Khz), handy if you like you're super high res music off HD Tracks. However optical is preferable when hooking computers up to amps, as you sometimes run into ground loop issues otherwise.
Optical usually has a Toslink style plug, but many laptops (and Mac Mini's) to save space will double up the optical post with the headphone jack. Ebay is your friend here, with many optical 'headphone' jack to toslink type cables going for couple of quid.
Electronic SPDIF is usually over an RCA phono plug (and a 75 Ohm coax cable, but you can generally make do with any old cable to a degree). On a sound card, they may however use a 3.5mm jack and so you'll need a mono 3.5mm to phono cable.
However some sound cards & motherboard may not present the spdif out the back by default and need an additional backing plate, with a little cable that runs internally to some jumpers on the motherboard or sound card. Looks a bit like this:-
http://forum.videohelp.com/attachment.php?attachme...
The one pictured presents an optical and electric SPDIF plugs, giving you the choice to use either, both will do exactly the same and software wise treated as the same output.
Electronic SPDIF usually supports higher sample rates (beyond 96Khz), handy if you like you're super high res music off HD Tracks. However optical is preferable when hooking computers up to amps, as you sometimes run into ground loop issues otherwise.
ash73 said:
These days you might be better off hooking them up via HDMI?
Can you persuade the computer to bitstream out of the HDMI port though? Genuine question, had two video cards with HDMI out (ATI and nVidia) and haven't seen settings for anything other than stereo audio. In any case I'm pretty sure the video card HDMI audio out is pretty limited, I don't think it support DTS connect or the DD equivelent so people with a good sound card/on board sound would be better off using SP/DIF.
Unless I'm wrong? Not really tried it...
probedb said:
S/PDIF can be optical or coax. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF
Yes, you're right of course...rembered after I wrote the reply...Edited by varsas on Monday 4th August 23:14
DKS said:
Follow up question:
I have found the 3 pin header on the motherboard. 5V, SPDIF and ground. Can I make a lead from header pins to a phono socket or does it need the separate module the manual mentions to generate the digital signal?
TIA.
It may need a small header board, back in the day I got one for my Asus A7N8X (I think). It wasn't expensive and they may be available online. Mine connected the mobo and provided S/P-DIF in/out for both coax and optical.I have found the 3 pin header on the motherboard. 5V, SPDIF and ground. Can I make a lead from header pins to a phono socket or does it need the separate module the manual mentions to generate the digital signal?
TIA.
Hi! A quick update; I found the header on the motherboard and made a lead from an old CD audio cable and soldered a phono female free socket onto it which I fitted to a space PCI blanking slot.
Success! The amplifier recognises and plays the audio fine. Although I can't seem to make it recognise the rear speakers in Windows. Any ideas? TIA.
Success! The amplifier recognises and plays the audio fine. Although I can't seem to make it recognise the rear speakers in Windows. Any ideas? TIA.
Maybe a driver issue? My 'boards have all used a Realtek chipset and you need the full realtek drivers to get the 'Realtek HD audio manager' applet to set up the surround. It's under control panel -> Hardware and Sound on my Win7 PC. Does your amp see it as an analogue or a digital connection?
DKS said:
It has a VIA HD Audio Deck little app thing, yes, in which I had to turn on the SPDIF output. Only the front two speakers respond to the test too, not centre or rears.
The amp sees it as a digital input.
Thanks again!
Unless it's encoding to DD or DTS you're not going to get surround speakers over S/P-DIF.The amp sees it as a digital input.
Thanks again!
Edited by DKS on Sunday 28th September 20:17
probedb said:
DKS said:
It has a VIA HD Audio Deck little app thing, yes, in which I had to turn on the SPDIF output. Only the front two speakers respond to the test too, not centre or rears.
The amp sees it as a digital input.
Thanks again!
Unless it's encoding to DD or DTS you're not going to get surround speakers over S/P-DIF.The amp sees it as a digital input.
Thanks again!
Edited by DKS on Sunday 28th September 20:17
I suppose you could enocde into dolby surround, if your sound card supports that?
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