sound card question

[SDB100]

I'm going to be buying the Logitech z-680 5.1 speaker system. I had "planned" on using the onboard audio from my Asus K8V motherboard, but im hearing that it's really not that impressive.

My other option is to buy a PCI sound card. Now, ive looked at the SB Audigy2 cards and they look to be good, however, they are all only 7.1. My question is, if I use a 7.1 sound card on a 5.1 speaker system, will this create a problem with sound since I wont be using all of the available channels? Ive noticed there is a "digital out for 5.1 (6ch SPDIF). If I use this option does it degrade the sound?

Lastly, I was just reading that you dont need to use the audio cable that normally runs from your CD-ROM to your sound card? If this is true, how do you enable the digital sound with WinXP? I'm using WinXP home edition with SP1. Also, how does this work if you dont have the audio cable and does it become more CPU intensive if you use the windows digital audio option?

 

[Crashman]

You say "I'm going to replace it because I've heard it's not that good. I have the parts to actually test it, but I'd rather drop money on something because of some rumor rather than test it myself". And I say you have more money than brains, the only way you'll know if it's "acceptable" or not is to test it.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Codesmith]

Excellent speakers.

1) Those are digital speakers! Do you think your music sounds better when you download it using a 3Com Ethernet card? A $20 CMEDIA will transmit the same bit-stream as a $640 Edirol DA-2496! You motherboard has an SPDIF port, use it

BTW your speakers have a headphone out on the desktop control, so you don't have to use your motherboards analog out late at night.

2) That little cable is for analog extraction! If you are running Windows 3.11 on a 386 then by all means leave that cable connected. Or better yet pay $20 and upgrade to a Pentium MHz which can handle digital extraction using less than 1% of the CPU. On 9x you need to rip that cable out, burn it, then tell Windows Media Player to enable Digital Audio Extraction. With XP you just rip out the cable.

3) 7.1 to 5.1, not a problem. You just set the speaker configuration to 5.1.

4) Situations where you would still want to upgrade to a better soundcard.

A) You are a hardcore gamer and you want maximum performance in Games

B) You are hardcore gamer and you want have 4.1 and 5.1 sound while playing games.

Your integrated soundcard uses the CPU for 3D gaming effects, which can lower your FPS by as much as 25%.

Most integrated soundcards can only digitally encode to 2 channels. So with static sources (DVDs,AVI's etc) you get full 5.1, but with dynamic sources (Games, System Noises ect..) all you get is 2.1.

A $35 SB Live 5.1 has decent analog out, good gaming performance and offers 4.1 digital encoding from dynamic sources.

Remember to set your soundcard to SPDIF and disable base redirection and AC3 decode.

A $99 Audigy2 ZS has excellent analog out, excellent gaming performance and offers 4.1 digital encoding from dynamic sources.

You can also have the option of using the Audigy2's high quality 6 channel analog out. This will give you a full 5.1 in games, with practically no loss in quality due to the Audigy2's excellent DAC.

The only card capable of encoding to a full 5.1 is the SoundStorm available only on certain NForce2 motherboards.

With some models of Creative Cards + Creative Speakers, you can use connect using three two channel digital connections and get a full 5.1. But this is non standard and incompatible with other brands.