Need Help Setting Up Logitech Z-5500

[itotallybelieveyou]

I bought a Xtremegamer sound card a few weeks ago, and got the X 540 Logitech sound system. But today one of the speakers broke so I sold the thing to my friend for cheap. Yeah. Point is I did a little research and decided I'm getting the Z 5500 system. I'm sure I'll have no problem setting up the system but I've been doing a little reading on the default Analog vs Digital cables. So question is how much better do Digital cables sound better then analog? I don't watch movies too much. I game a decent bit but, my big thing is music and TV shows. How do I go about setting up the system using digital cables? And is it difficult? I know I need to get Coxial cables or something. But after that what happens? Would be nice if I was given a step by step manual but just a general idea of how to do it would be fine.

 

[cjl]

With the Z-5500, the difference won't be significant. Also, unless you have a dolby digital live card (like the newest X-fi Titanium series), you will only get surround on movies with the digital connection, while games will be stereo only. With the analog, the movies and games will all be full surround. Overall, I would say that digital isn't really worth it for a Z-5500 system. The speakers aren't good enough to really notice a difference in quality.

 

[PsyKhiqZero]

The nice thing about the digital connection (I've used the optical) is it tells you what kinda of digital feed your getting. (stereo, dolby digital etc.) on the screen where the analog will not. I haven't noticed any real quality differences. Personally I use the analog for my pc and the digital for my ps3 and my xbox360.

 

[cjl]

The nice thing about the digital connection (I've used the optical) is it tells you what kinda of digital feed your getting. (stereo, dolby digital etc.) on the screen where the analog will not. I haven't noticed any real quality differences. Personally I use the analog for my pc and the digital for my ps3 and my xbox360.

That's because with the analog connection, all of it looks the same to the speakers, as it is decoded in your computer and sent out as a pure sound wave. With digital, it sends dolby digital or DTS to the speakers, which then decode it and play it, letting them see what kind of signal they are getting. Any source that is not pre encoded will only be able to use standard PCM encoding however, which only supports stereo on that bandwidth of connection.