Home Theater Receivers

You cannot use the Audigy test. It's only good if you have computer speakers hooked up to all the outputs on the card. Maybe I didn't explain well enough. You have to use the test tone and channel adjustments on the RECIEVER. Not familiar with your reciever but you should have a menu for that. I think you should have your "balance/fader" on the CARD set to the center and the volume probably set somewhere around the middle.

I'm not sure of the PCM rate, but I think it's set to 48 KHz by default. Did you change it? If it worked before, but it back to whatever it was.

With all the experience you have had with new parts on computers, I'm surprised you haven't smelled that "new smell". That's just the parts inside the reciever getting hot. Depending on how loud you play the reciever, it can get very hot on top. You're reciever might or might not have a fan inside, that will come on if it gets to a certain temp. The smell will go away in a week or so.

Ah good - in the documentation it did say contact the manufacturer/dealer if there were any odd smells. I thought it was the "new smell" - like a car or a pair of shoes, or in computers, especially a PSU - but I wasn't sure Thanks for clarifying that.

The test tone is all worked out and calibrated.

What should I have the Audigy set for? 5.1, or stereo?

Anyway, I rented a DVD and I'm gonna watch it now, I have it set for Dolby Pro Logic II Movie and everything

Thanks!

Set the Audigy for 5.1, the DVD for 5.1, (Dolby Digital). Your reciever may auto detect Dolby Digtal, if not manually select it. Remember, Dolby Digital and Pro Logic are not the same. If you select stereo on the Audigy you'll only get Pro Logic, which is not discrete 5.1 channel sound. Also, since you don't have the .1 (subwoofer), in the reciever surround setup, select "no subwoofer" or whatever term they might use.

Yeah that's done. Should I turn Pro Logic all the way off and just let Dolby Digital take over? My receiver has center large/normal/off, and subwoofer on/off.

My receiver didn't detect any of the Dolby Digital signals. I read the manual - and it doesn't say anwhere how to manually enable it. I even enabled it in PowerDVD.

And will Creative's EAX work ok?

I dont know if anyone has already mentioned this, but you will only be able to get proper 5.1 audio via digital out with apps that output this specifically.

What I mean by this is that CDs, games etc will only be in stereo even if the games support EAX and surround because the Audigy is unable to encode the 5.1 audio into an AC3 stream 'on the fly'.

I hope this makes sence! DVDs however will work perfectly, as they already output a 5.1 AC3 stream. You can set your Amp to dolby prologic which will do a good job of expanding the stereo stream to your other speakers, but you wont get proper surround in games for example

AFAIK, the only soundcard that can encode 5.1 audio to AC3 on the fly is the nforce/nforce2 audio chipset but nvidia haven't made it into a seperate soundcard

If you have 6 analogue inputs on the back of your amp for external decoders, I would recommend you plug your audigy into those so you can get proper surround when you play games (Unless you don't care of course)

This is how I have my system set up at the moment and its annoying that I have 3 digital inputs that I can't use because Creative are so lame! >: (

On the Audigy Surround Mixer page you should have "digital output only" checked, if you don't you aren't getting a digital signal through the single digital output wire. As I said before, you have to make sure you Dolby Digital on the "DVD" itself enabled. When you first start the DVD you should get a menu on the screen that reads something like, play, audio setup or maybe language instead of audio setup, and several others. Go to audio or language and set it for Dolby Digital or 5.1, whatever is listed. If you have this set to PCM stereo, you'll get Pro Logic only. If you don't have a manual setting on your reciever for Dolby Digital, then leave it on Dolby Pro Logic and it should auto detect the Digital signal.

Set the large/small speakers settings like the manual says, but for sure turn off the subwoofer, or you will get very little bass, at least until you get one.

As far as EAX on the sound card, I would leave that turned off, as well as all the other surround parameters on the card and just use whats on the reciever. You shouldn't have two surround parameters going (the card and the reciever) at the same time.

A personal opinion, I don't like any surround turned on, except when watching movies or tv (Dolby). I don't like it for music, although Dolby Pro Logic II Music may be OK, I don't have it. Most of the other surround settings on your card and reciever to me sound fake, except for a very few. As far as EAX or EAXHD, I don't like it except for some games like SOF II on which it is great. Again, just a personal opinion.

I don't think you understood my comment fully (not surprising I didn't put it very well)

What I mean is that digital out works perfectly, and I get a digital 5.1 AC3 steam when playing a DVD (and I get the Dolby Digital or DTS indicator on my amp) but if you have say, a game like SOF2 and want to output 4 seperate audio channels (i.e. front and rear) so you can hear sound coming from behind you cannot do it via digital out as the Audigy can't encode the 4 chanels into the apropriate AC3 stream, it can only output them as seperate stereo digital PCM signals.

The way the digital connection works to Creative's digital speaker systems is that the Audigy outputs 3 seperate stereo digital PCM steams for front, back and centre/sub and you have to buy a special cable that connects each digital stream to the correct inputs on the speaker.

You can test this yourself, if you get a headphone jack to stereo rca adaptor, and connect first the left plug to your digital in, then unplug it and use the right plug you will notice one cable caries 'front' and one carries 'rear' (I believe left caries front and right carries rear from memory)

Use the speaker test to confirm that if you only get 'front left, front right' from one rca plug, and 'rear left, rear right' from the other.

I hope I managed to make more sense this time

rubjonny, you have enlightened me on the digital output. By reading the manual on this card (look at page 23 of the manual, it shows digital signal to amp) I thought it only output a pure digital signal only from the center/sub output if you had the digital output box checked, if you are getting a digital output from all the outputs, I stand corrected. And I guess I didn't explain very well either, I assumed we all understood that a 5.1 signal would only come from a 5.1 source like DVD or Sat. TV.

Glad I could be of help I agree with you about applying pro logic to a stereo source it makes some music sound really strange, thankfully the Audigy is clever enough to just mirror the front channels to the rear speakers.

I just wish NVidia would release their Nforce sound codec on a dedicated PCI soundcard so I can just have 1 digital cable and get proper surround from both games and DVDs As it is I have to have 3 messy analogue cables hanging out the back rather than just having the one digital cable.

You see I play games more than I watch DVDs and I like having proper surround, after all I didn't spend 450 odd quid on speakers to not use the back ones properly!

Like you, I hardly ever watch DVDs on my computer, mostly just play games, I have a DVD player for my home audio system. I don't have my computer hooked up to my reciever, so I can't say for sure, but from looking at page 23 of the Audigy manual, I understand that you could run one wire to your reciever from the center/sub output and it would be digital 5.1, IF, you have the digital output only box checked. It looks like if you run the other outputs to a reciever with 5.1 inputs it will be an anolog signal, in this case you are letting the sound card do the decoding, nothing wrong with that. If you use the center/sub output in digital mode you are useing the reciever to decode. Don't take this wrong, I'm not arguing with you just trying to understand myself.

If I'm right about this my only question would be as to which method to use is, is the sound card decoder better or the reciever's, I don't know, probably depends on the quality of your reciever.

Yes what you say is totally correct, with a digital connection you will get proper 5.1 audio but only if the application can send a 5.1 encoded signal.

The problem is that when a program which tries to output normal surround sound via EAX or directsound, only a stereo signal makes it to the Amp.

This is because the Audigy can not encode stereo/4/5.1 etc audio to a proper 5.1 encoded AC3 signal on the fly, it can only 'pass through' an existing 5.1 stream.

What the Audigy does with 'normal' surround audio is send 3 seperate PCM stereo signals (front L/R, rear L/R and sub/centre) down 3 different wires through the digital output. Creative sell a special digital 5.1 speaker system that accepts these 3 seperate signals and merges them to a proper 5.1 output.

Since all normal amps only have 1 digital input you can only hear 2 channels at a time, unless you somehow have an amp with 3 digital ins, and the ability to combine them to 1 signal. (Like the one creative sell)

The Nforce chipset audio controller however, can encode a 5.1 streams on the fly, so games and movies will both have true 5.1 sound via a single digital connection.

Damn its difficult to explain, I hope I managed to get it right this time!

Agreed PCM stereo is only two channels, but, like on my home DVD player and my Direct TV reciever, I use one coaxial cable, digital output to digital input (could use optical cable) and I get perfect Dolby Digital 5.1 or in the case of DTS ES 6.1 discrete channels. Again I think that if you hook up your reciever to the center/sub out on the card (digital output only box checked) I think you will get 5.1 sound, again in the case of the card I could be wrong. I'm just reading what I believe the card manual says.

I won't argue with any more, I don't want this to get unfriendly, because I could be wrong on the card. You're right, it's difficult to expain.

I know what you're getting at, johnny.

What I have now is the digital output going from my Audigy to a single digital input on my amp, and the Audigy's test tone only plays the front left and front right. If I connect the other RCA plug on the cable that's leading out of the Audigy to another digital input on my amp, that input plays the rear. So I am not getting surround. Would I need a sound card or something to fix this? Anything I can buy or something???? I would buy the nForce2 :haha: but I don't have the money.

<Sigh> I dont think I'll ever manage to explain it

What I'm saying is, programs that output 5.1 digital audio will work. eg DVD movies, because the 5.1 stream is ALREADY encoded. no problems. EZ

However Games do not have pre-encoded output 5.1 audio, they output analogue audio. The Audigy CAN NOT CONVERT the analogue audio to a 5.1 digital stream to send to the amp.

It can only convert each seperate analogue signal to a seperate digital PCM signal. Since PCM is stereo, only 2 of the 6 PCM streams being sent from the Audigy can pass through the digital connection, only a stereo signal makes it to the amp from games.

If that doesn't explain it I'll just give up and we can just agree to disagree

Don't worry about it getting unfriendly, I'm only gonna get angry at myself because I can't get the words out right

I absolutely 100% agree with what you said. And it can be very confusing. Look how long this thread has been going on.

Vehementi:
The only way to fix it is to get a sound card that can encode a 5.1 AC3 stream on the fly, and I'm afraid the ONLY sound controller that can do it (at the moment) is firmly lodged on the NForce mobo, and Nvidia don't seem to want to release a standalone soundcard based on it.

I'm dissapointed that creative haven't done this, I mean they're always boasting about how powerfull the audio controller on the Audig is

Fine excuse to upgrade I would say, shame the nforce don't do EAX3

Don't be so quick about that johnny, I saw the Philips Acoustic Edge at Best Buy today and it said it could encode 5.1 audio for music and games and stuff. But I won't buy it

Man I splurged today. I got a pair of KLH speakers for $43, , a Nike psa mp3 player for $35, and speaker wire. Now I'm out of money :haha:

And my center channel came

Hmmmm looks interesting! Are you sure its talking about encoding a digital 5.1 AC3 audio stream, or just making any audio source 'virtual 5.1' for audio which doesn't include centre + sub channels?

I'm planning to buy one of these for my DVD box soon anyway, I'll let you know how I get on!

OK just answer me this question:

Is there any way I can get the Audigy to send my receiver at least 4 channel output? I'm talking about the rear speakers showing up as "rear left and right" in the Audigy setup and the front speakers "front left and right". Is there any way EAX enabled games can use the rear speakers seperate of the front? Is there any special feature in my receiver that lets me combine two inputs into one?

The only way you would be able to do this is if your amp has a set of analogue inputs for external decoders, my amp has this feature and its the only way to get 4+ channel sound from games.

You would have to select 'ext decdr' or something on the amp. Just have a look round the back and look for 6 inputs in a group somewhere.

This will also work fine with DVDs if the DVD playback program lets you specify 4+ speaker output. Of course you could keep the digital plug in as well as the analogue cables as well giving you the best of both!