Which Is Better, Optical Or Digital Din?

[ShadowPaktu]

Thats the thing it is set liek that, 5.1 in cp and the mixer, and digital output only, but it still sounds like stereo speakers lol, with the rear and center not working

[oralpain]

There is NO difference in sound between optical (toslink) and coax, assuming they are setup right. It's digital, the signal is exactly the same. Just use wich ever is easyest/cheapest they will all produce the same sound. It's digital, the signal is exactly the same.

Edited August 20, 2004 by oralpain

[hardnrg]

found this on a forum:

 

If I use the digital output, I lose functionality. I will only have stereo sound unless it is encoded in Dolby Digital or DTS, which means I will lose EAX among other features. Plus, sound processing on the sound card is far better than on my receiver.

 

maybe if you uncheck the AC-3 Decode option under speaker settings in the creative mixer then it just passes multi-channel everything?

 

stab in the dark at the moment, will post something more useful if i find it...

 

ok, i found out

http://forums.firingsquad.com/firingsquad/...&message.id=440

 

it was bugging me! you can't output 5.1 sound from anything apart from DVD.. something to do with the Creative cards not being able to encode a multiple channels as Dolby Digital 5.1 compliant signal to pass down the digital output... AC3Filter *might* be able to convert the multi-channel of DirectSound3D (e.g. "Hardware 3D sound" game option) into DD5.1/AC3... but i think EAX plain doesn't work through digi out in more than stereo...

 

hopefully you have 6 analog inputs? :/

 

The only problem here is that you'll have to be using a Creative card to utilize [EAX], and you won't be able to game in digital mode (using spdif). For me that's not much of an issue, I run the Logitech Z-680s and have coax hooked up to spdif, along with my analogue inputs. When I need to game I just switch over to analogue mode.