Live 5.1 hooked up to reciever

[Fubarian]

Has ANYONE hooked up the 5.1 live to a real reciever? As in like a Sony digital reciever or a Pioneer reciever???

Please, don't waste my time on this sayin the cambridge works - I have over $3000 invested in real stereo stuff at home and I'm gettin sick of using my POS tv tuner (it hates 2000 big time and looks just...bad...) to watch DVDs in 5.1

heh, 5.1 rules <IMG SRC="smilies/tongue.gif" border="0">

[sennister]

What Live 5.1 package do you have? Do you have the Live Drive? Does your "Real Stero Reciever" have any optical inputs on the back or is it all RCA plugs?

[Fubarian]

the version of the card doesn't matter, a live 5.1 is a live5.1 is a live5.1 - The reciever I have is a digital reciever, hints why I need to know if anyone has done it, but I have not bought the card yet.

it has 3 digitals - 1 optical 2 coax

[Auric]

Fubarrian, the optical out to optical in will work in theory... as will the RCA out, if you have the 4 inputs for front l/r back l/r just use 1/8mm to 1/4" adapters and plug em in. I have hooked a "live" card up to a 3400 watt PA system, no problems.

[Fubarian]

I guess I wasn't clear in my beginning statemnet - Has anyone done the following

Taking a SB live 5.1 (not necessarily the plat) and hooked it up to a digital reciever. Digital can go though either the Coax or the optical, it really doesn't matter.

On their (soundblaster's) site they say you can if you get a 9mm jack to a single RCA port - and I wonder if anyone has tried this.

[sennister]

The reason I asked what live package you have is if you have the Live Drive either as an add on or with it (Platinum Edition) You will be able to use the optical inputs to connect your computer to your stereo. It is the easiest and the best quality. The problem with using the RCA adapter is that you only have a hookup for your front and rear speakers. You do not have the connections for the sub and center speakers. So unless you want to use the Cambridge setup (which you said that you didn’t want to do) you will want to use the optical option. Besides this the optical connection is a digital connection. RCA wires are analog.

So if you use RCA cables the DVD player converts the sound from digital to analog, sends the signal across the RCA wire to your receiver. At which point your receiver converts the signal back to digital so the receiver can processes it and runs it through your EQ and amplifier. Next unless you have digital speakers on your $3000 Stereo (I think NOT) your receiver converts the signal back to analog so it can send the signal through the speaker wires to your speakers.

If you use optical the DVD player takes the sound sends it to the Live Drive. It sends the digital signal across the optical cable to the receiver which processes it and runs it through your EQ and amplifier. Next unless you have digital speakers on your $3000 Stereo (I think NOT) your receiver converts the signal back to analog so it can send the signal through the speaker wires to your speakers.

Now every time you convert a signal from digital to analog and analog to digital there is a little side effect called distortion. So if you want your $3000 stereo to sound it’s best go with the slightly more expensive and a lot easier option of the Live Drive and optical cables.

[Fubarian]

Well, digital doesn't have to be optical - it doesn't make a difference, for instance, wiring inside your computer isn't optical is it? Again, beside the point, did you hook up the digital out to a digital reciever and it do the 5.1 decypering correctly and cleanly.

[sennister]

Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes....

Use optical, it is the EASIEST WAY TO DO IT!!!

Every component on my stereo is connected using optical. (DVD player, Sony Playstation II, MD player, CD changer, LD Player, oh and my Creative Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Platinum!!!) My Sony reciever has 3 optical inputs and 1 out. Then I have added an optical switch box just so I can hook up these additional components. They are available from many home audio stores and places online like crutchfield.

[pHattmAtt]

Had a quick look around about this, here's what I discovered/already knew:

There are 2 basic types of digital audio connection mediums:

1. Optical - TOSLink (Toshiba Link) seems to be the most common standard for the connectors (as used by the majority of minidisc recorders). Uses optical fibre as the transmission medium.

2. Coaxial - The most commonly used connector is the RCA style (RCA refers to the type of connector nothing more), but also used it a BNC type connector (rare, mostly high end recording solutions).

The Soundblaster Live! cards do not all have standard optical connectors (either RCA or TOSLink). However, adding either a "Live! Drive" or "Digital I/O 2 Card" provides a selection of both.

The choice of which medium to use is a matter of convenience, the same digital information is passed over each.

If the purpose of your purchase is to connect your computer to a Dolby Digital Decoder,allowing for superiour surround sound then I think that checking with Creative that this is fine would be a good idea.

My friends and I have connected Live! cards to a couple of digital devices, using TOSLink and Coax, never had a problem.

My friend has his computer connected to his seperates Hi-Fi using a coaxial cable to his minidisc machine, which passes through to the amp. (the amp does not have digital inputs). This works fine, allows high quality recording, and LOUD unreal tournament games... <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">

Please excuse the length of the post, I was bored and had time to look this up. Hope it helps.

<IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">

[Fubarian]

When I had a regular Live with the i/o card, it had 2 digitals on it, 2 spdifs - thinking this was 5.1 I hooked it up to my reciever and got terrible sound. After quickly learning that spdif digital didn't mean at any rate 5.1 digital, I sold the card and got just a live...1st version <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0"> And after seeing this 5.1 out now for a while, I'm looking into doing it all over again, just don't want to get toasted for 100 bucks.

I think I'll get a hold of creative and find out if you can hook it stright up off the digital out (back of card) or I need the Live Drive to get the thing to work.

[sennister]

The point I was trying to make in explaining what happens to music as it is transmitted from the device (CD player, DVD player, or computer) to the receiver is the last paragraph. If you want to minimize distortion reduce the number of times your sound is being converted from analog to digital and vice versa. Of course you don’t have optical cables inside of your computer but the last time I took an electronics course about computers a computer was still digital. 1s and 0s do not go through a coaxial cable (RCA or BNC). Enough about this.

If you do not opt for the live drive or a digital I/O card (I haven ever used the digital I/O card so I can speak for how it works.) you will be limited to the quality of the sound. There is a reason that the 5.1 digital receivers have connections for 6 RCA cables per component. If it didn’t matter then they would only have 2. Two after all is cheaper to produce than 6.

If you connect to the back of your computer using an adapter you would need one for the front speakers, and one for the rear speakers. This would allow you to hook up 4 of the 6 RCA cables for 5.1. The card has outputs for front speaker, and rear speakers are line out since the card does not have an amplifier and this is what I am referring to not the digital out. The disadvantage to this that you still do not have the 5.1 digital since the 5.1 standard would require 2 more RCA cables, one for the sub woofer another for the center channel speaker.

If you have the live drive you will be able to hook directly from the live drive to the receiver. I would use the optical cable. It costs a little more cable for cable, but as soon as you look at the fact that you need 6 RCA cables for 5.1 and only 1 optical cable for 5.1 the price becomes close to the same. A second plus is there are less cables behind your receiver and computer which allows for better airflow/cooling and doesn’t look like a rat’s nest. As far as the distortion that you will experience using RCA vs optical... It could be like the difference between a cassette tape and a CD. What I’m getting at is most people with low end to middle range stereo systems won’t notice a difference. Those with high end stereos might notice a difference at very loud volumes. I say again MIGHT notice a difference provided they don’t have hearing loss from playing their stereo so loud.

I personally spend $3000 on speakers for my system. The total price was just under $8000 for the stereo and I wasn’t going to worry about saving $1 on cables per component because it wasn’t mush cost difference between the optical and RCA. So it was an easy decision. If you have the hookups (optical) you might as well use them.

[pHattmAtt]

Originally posted by sennister:
[QB]Of course you don’t have optical cables inside of your computer but the last time I took an electronics course about computers a computer was still digital. 1s and 0s do not go through a coaxial cable (RCA or BNC).QB]

I'm sorry to go back to this but I think my posting has been misunderstood.

Yes, traditional RCA connectors on audio equipment are analog. They provide an analogue "line" signal between audio devices.

However, there are also digital connections availible on recent audio devices that use electrical mediums to connect to each other. Using R/F to transmit (as an alternative to light) and coaxial as the medium.

The connectors use the RCA standard plug/socket arrangement.

1s & 0s CAN travel down coaxial cable/ otherwise how does 10Base5 networking/ digital cable TV/ your mouse work?

If you have a Live! Drive II, the digital RCA connectors are the ones to the top left.

Hope this helps clarify my earlier posting.