Digital Sound

[Floppyman]

Hey all,

I have a rather interesting question. I installed a Soundblaster Platinum 5.1 with Live Drive II combo yesterday and hooked the whole thing up to my Altec Lansing ACS 56 speakers. Everything works great, however the cable that goes on the digital IN on the subwoofer and digital out on the soundcard does not fit correctly on the soundcard digital OUT. So I took a cable from my ACS 43 speakers that fits on both ends. Everything works, except I don't know whether the digital sound is working correctly. Is there a way I could test whether the digital sound is working correctly? I tried digital cd audio and it works, I'm just wondering if there is a way to see that the digital sound is working correctly. Thanks in Advance!

[jharris]

I'll mention the AudioHQ utility that comes with SB Live. In it there is a speaker test where it'll sequentially output sound to each speaker channel (depending on your setup). I think that's also where you specify digital output.

I have a SB Live. I could get my digital out working with my Altec Lansing speakers - a 4/1 system - but not on all four channels. I either got front/rear or left/right sounds; e.g. I get left channel out of both left speakers. I never could attain four seperate channels using the digital output.

I ended up getting a set of Cambridge digital speakers that were made to work with the SB Live card (same company). Those speakers have a special DIN connector for the sound card, and it gives four seperate channels with digital quality.

Hope this helps.

[Floppyman]

Thanks jharris,

I tried the utility, but when I check digital output only I get no sound when testing. I'm using the Altec ACS 56 speakers, also a 4.1 speaker set....could you tell me how you got yours to work? Funny thing is digital output only, works with cd's but not mp3's or any other sound. Any ideas? Thanks again.

[Floppyman]

Hmmm, I don't get this. When I enable digital sound cd's still work and sound better too, but no other files.... .wav/mp3/midi whatever work anymore, any ideas anyone?

[Floppyman]

Bingo...finally figured it out. Looks like the cable was the problem all along. I had digital output enabled when I fiddled with the cables and as I played along with the digital out on the sub I noticed I got sound when I didn't have the cable plugged in all the way. So (since technically this isn't right cable anyway) now it works plugged in about halfway. Can't wait to hear some digital cd audio all the way through without an analog conversion...can't right now since my cdrw doesn't have a digital cd plugin, oh well, just glad it works now.

Anyone know now where I can get another replacement cable for the other set of speakers I have?