360 Audio help

Pdog · 30 Dec 2006 at 11:58

Hi Peeps,

I was lucky enough to get a 360 for Christmas. Having had it working on my standard TV, I intend to move the 360 into my computer room and connect to my Dell 2405.

I am going to town to buy the Xbox 360 VGA AV Cable. Now this cable supports DD 5.1 Surround Sound. I have 4.1 speaker setup at the moment. The sub has an input for spdif. However the connection looks like a standard speaker cable. The question I have is will this spdif input in the sub work with this cable? or am I being stupid

Thanks

tomwalker · 30 Dec 2006 at 12:48

The VGA cable has an optical out just like the component cable if thats what you mean.

DaveyD · 30 Dec 2006 at 13:55

Unless the speakers have a Dolby Digital decoder built in, then spdif will not work.

Pdog · 30 Dec 2006 at 14:07

Cheers for the replies guys. I am unsure if the Sub has dolby digital built in or not. I did read the sticky and that 3.5mm to phono, I thought would do the job.

I have managed to find an image of all the connections on the back of the sub.

Here

What options have I got?

DaveyD · 30 Dec 2006 at 14:13

EDIT!

Ignore me, looked at the pic again, and as Doug said below me, the only way you're going to get surround is by an optical to coaxal convertor.

Doug · 30 Dec 2006 at 14:18

You'll need to pick up an optical->coax converter, either Altec's OC1 or one made by anyone else. I picked one up for £15 a few years ago, so they should be cheap as chips these days.

That said, if you're happy with stereo, the analogue connection will do just fine.

Pdog · 30 Dec 2006 at 14:28

Cheers Peeps, I appreciate the help. I would like to use the opticial. you'll have to forgive me as I don't really know the terminology. The spdif conenction looks like a phono type conenction. So am I right in thinking I need to get an Optical to Coax converter as Doug has suggested?

One last point I would like to make, is it possible to have both the PC and Xbox connected to the speaker setup, without having to unplug something every time I wanted to use one or the other?

EDIT: if the Xbox is using spdif, and pc using Analog maybe I don't need to unplug anything?

Thanks

DaveyD · 30 Dec 2006 at 15:22

Pdog said:
Cheers Peeps, I appreciate the help. I would like to use the opticial. you'll have to forgive me as I don't really know the terminology. The spdif conenction looks like a phono type conenction. So am I right in thinking I need to get an Optical to Coax converter as Doug has suggested?

One last point I would like to make, is it possible to have both the PC and Xbox connected to the speaker setup, without having to unplug something every time I wanted to use one or the other?

EDIT: if the Xbox is using spdif, and pc using Analog maybe I don't need to unplug anything?

Thanks

As long as you're converting the optical toslink to coaxal spdif, then you should be okay I'd have thought. I take it you can simply switch between the two on the speakers.

Pdog · 30 Dec 2006 at 15:56

Yup I have Dolby Digital, Stereo, Stereox2, Prologic. Quad.

Sweet I'll contact my local AV shop. See if they have that toslink cable.