[simplekid]

Hi guys,

i bought a sound card because i didn't want a weak link in my system being the on-board sound so i got a sound blaster xfi extreme audio card (not sure how extreme it is?) it works great, happy with everything apart from it doesn't output 7.1 through optical connection to my onyko av amp.

xp latest drivers from creative.

any ideas thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

kris.

 

[Pauldo]

I don't believe you will be able to get anything more than 2.1 over optical with that board. You would need something on the order of Titanium or Platinum to achieve that.

I would return it, if at all possible, and go with an Auzentech or maybe a Prodigy if that is too much (you didn't mention anything about gaming).

You mentioned that you have onboard sound. Typically, audio over optical with onboard sound is pretty good (if you have it). It's the analog ports that suffer. Might want to check into that and see if it will work for you.

Pauldo

 

[simplekid]

Really? i had a very similar board to that previously and it worked great and it was an older audigy 2 something.

I do have onboard sound and its okay and yeah i could use that but the quality is deffinatly noticable through a nice audio set up.

 

[Pauldo]

You have tried your onboard sound via optical out and noticed reduced quality?

The reason why I ask is that I have done a lot of reading over the past 5 years at missingremote.com and to some extent at AVSforum.com (almost too much info there) and a lot of guys there use and recommend onboard audio when all you are going to do is use optical out. After all optical out is just a pass through, there is no signal conversion like there is with analog out. If you really can notice poor quality than the serious audiophiles use the Auzentech for their optical out.

Me, I have bad ears and a couple of very young kids running around so I just use a nicer pair of computer speakers hooked up to a Chaintech 710 (Envy24) and no one knows any better :grin:.

As for the X-fi, Google it and you will see many people complaining about the X-fi extreme.

You did make me re-check my facts and one thing that I found while do that was this article over on the AVSforum; Need a sound card.

It was only talking about 5.1 from his ExtremeGamer and he was linking his Onkyo via HDMI on his GTX 280 but it might be worth a read for you. Keep in mind that the ExtremeGamer is slightly different from the plain old extreme (Plain old extreme has a different chip than the rest of the line-up of X-fi cards) and this workaround may not work if you have the plain old extreme.

Hope that helps.

Pauldo

 

[simplekid]

Thanks for your reply i hadn't realised that that card had so many problems. I blindly thought that a dedicated sound card would offer better audio quality as i'd heard people complaining in forums about their onboard sound.

cheers for your reply

 

[simplekid]

sorry double post