Hey, just bought the above card for use with my external decoder. I bought this as my new motherboard doesnt have spdif out so I needed a new sound device so that I could passthrough olby digital and dts streams to my receiver. The rear of the card has a digital out but its a 3.5mm jack. Obviously an spdif or optical connection wont fit this so I bought an optical cable with a 3.5mm jack connector, which I think is the same you would use with a minidisc player? Anyways, after getting everything going, I have no sound at all. There is also no light coming from the end of the optical cable that plugs into my receiver which led me to believe that this option will not work. After reading the online manual, I see that you need the seperate digital i/o module for spdif/optical to work (http://www.soundblaster.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=16&product=1780) So the question I am asking is that can I use my card to output digital streams via spdif or optical without buying the seperate module. If no, what options do I have to get spdif/optical out from my computer?? Thanks
Vey good, but I was asking if there was a work around and also what other options are there to get spdif out on my computer.
Looks like u r wrong, after searching hard enough I found out that a 3.5mm stereo jack to stereo phono cables does the job. plugged the 3.5mm jack to the soundcard then tried both phono cables in the spdif in my receiver. After trying the second cable I finally got digital sound from my soundcard and DD and DTS tracks are working flawlessly. Thanks for your help grandpa