SB Live for digital out

[soup006]

Hi,

I have a soundblaster live value card with digital out on the back. The hole for the digital out is the same size as the speaker inputs. Can I use this digital out to connect to my receiver? My receiver does Dolby 5.1. What kind of cable would I need?

Thanks!

[A_Brass]

Hi,

I have a soundblaster live value card with digital out on the back. The hole for the digital out is the same size as the speaker inputs. Can I use this digital out to connect to my receiver? My receiver does Dolby 5.1. What kind of cable would I need?

Thanks!

I don't have this working but the cable you need is a 1/8 mini-jack to RCA stereo cable. One of the two (white or red) should have the digital signal on it.
[ATTACHMENT NOT FOUND]

You should do some research on the web and creative.com if your execting this to work correctly. I'm not sure the live value supported 5.1. I have the same card and I know it's supposed to support digital out but I'm not sure if it will actually support 5.1. To get 5.1 on a DVD for instance might require a decoder that has 5.1 support. Check this forum for more info on that. I know I have seen a thread on getting it working.

[lonegeek]

No! That cable would only support 2.1... Digital out as in optical or coaxial?

[soup006]

No! That cable would only support 2.1... Digital out as in optical or coaxial?

I'm thinking it must be a proprietary creative cable because it's neither optical or coax...it's the same size as the speaker inputs except it says digital out. My receiver already decodes 5.1 so I just want to pass the signal straight to it.

[lonegeek]

hmmm maybe a 1/8 mini plug to a regualur composite connector?

[tieke]

You may be out of luck with this. I seem to recall that Creative actually have a proprietary plug that goes into the SBLive card to get the 5.1 output, which interfaces with Creative's speakers - like a stereo 3.5mm except that it has three bands rather than two? I remember stuffing around with one I had a while ago, and managed to hack up some sort of digital output to my receiver, except that apparently the voltage output was a lot higher than what it should have been and I decided to just change the card rather than risk frying my preamp.

cheers,

tieke

[A_Brass]

No! That cable would only support 2.1... Digital out as in optical or coaxial?

Do a search on google. I didn't think it was right either but it's supposed to work. The digital out is supposed to be coax (rca coax) but you cant buy a cable like that a regular retailer. A cheap solution is the 3.5 mini jack to RCA plugs. Its a short enough distance it shouldn't be a problem. I have seen several posts on different sites that make this suggestion.

What have you go to lose? You can hunt around for a "special" cable or go to radio shack and get a $3 cable. If it doesn't work your not out that much.

Check this out cheapist is $15
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/RCA-mini-spdif.html

Here is a forum that has some info regarding sblive spdif.
http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/1/2098.html

[Zool]

Yes you can use the 3.5 (mini jack) to RCA (single mono) for 5.1 on your reviever. I use that on my set up and it works fine. Just plug in to the coax digital in on your reciever and you should be ok. I had it set up on a SB Live and it worked fine. I now use the SB audigy with the same 3.5 to RCA and it is ok. You will have to use the sound blaster software to set the output to spdif output to pass to the reciever.

Zool

[A_Brass]

Yes you can use the 3.5 (mini jack) to RCA (single mono) for 5.1 on your reviever. I use that on my set up and it works fine. Just plug in to the coax digital in on your reciever and you should be ok. I had it set up on a SB Live and it worked fine. I now use the SB audigy with the same 3.5 to RCA and it is ok. You will have to use the sound blaster software to set the output to spdif output to pass to the reciever.

Zool

Thanks for comfirming what I said. Now I need to try it myself. I'm still thinking the SBLive Value is still not able to process 5.1 sound. Why else would SB have another SBLive card that was called SBLive 5.1. Oh well, it can't hurt to try right?

[soup006]

Thanks for comfirming what I said. Now I need to try it myself. I'm still thinking the SBLive Value is still not able to process 5.1 sound. Why else would SB have another SBLive card that was called SBLive 5.1. Oh well, it can't hurt to try right?

Well I don't think the value can process 5.1 either but I already have a receiver for that anyway. I'm going to try one of those cables.