Coaxial S/Pdif out port on asus P6X58D

delpy8 · 8 Mar 2011 at 11:27

Hi Forum,

Can you help with this??

I have the Asus P6X58D- E board which has Coaxial S/Pdif out port orange colour and above optical out

If I connect this to my amp will I get 5.1 surrond and if so what cable do i require,

Sorry should have said my speakers and amp is the logitech z 5400

Thanks

Marsman · 8 Mar 2011 at 12:03

Depends on what you expect to get 5.1 sound from. Playing DVD's, then yes you will get 5.1 sound. Games however, wont. DVD's, have 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS tracks which are passed on to the Z5400's decoder. Games though don't have Dolby Digital or DTS, and will just be in stereo, and the Z5400's will upmix that to 5.1 using Dolby Pro Logic.

To get true 5.1 from games using SPDIF, you would need a real time 5.1 encoder. Although your motherboard has DTS Surround Sensation UltraPC, this does not feature DTS Connect, which is a 5.1 real time encoder. Only way to get that, is to buy a sound card.

The only way to get 5.1 sound from games, without buying a sound card, is to use the analogue connections. That way 5.1 sound is sent direct.

delpy8 · 8 Mar 2011 at 12:22

Marsman said:
Depends on what you expect to get 5.1 sound from. Playing DVD's, then yes you will get 5.1 sound. Games however, wont. DVD's, have 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS tracks which are passed on to the Z5400's decoder. Games though don't have Dolby Digital or DTS, and will just be in stereo, and the Z5400's will upmix that to 5.1 using Dolby Pro Logic.

To get true 5.1 from games using SPDIF, you would need a real time 5.1 encoder. Although your motherboard has DTS Surround Sensation UltraPC, this does not feature DTS Connect, which is a 5.1 real time encoder. Only way to get that, is to buy a sound card.

The only way to get 5.1 sound from games, without buying a sound card, is to use the analogue connections. That way 5.1 sound is sent direct.

Thanks it will be for music and dvd,s and the odd game is there any specific cable I should get??

Thanks again

Marsman · 8 Mar 2011 at 12:33

Xonar DS would be fine, but you would need to use optical, rather than coaxial. The DS does have DTS Connect.

Dolby's 5.1 real time encoder is Dolby Digital Live, which is only featured on the Xonar D1/DX and above. The DG doesn't have these features, to keep the cost down. If you want to use coaxial, you'd have to get a D2/D2X, as that is the cheapest card that supports coaxial, even though it's far from cheap.

Do you have something else, like a console using the optical? If so, it would be better, cheaper certainly, to buy an optical switcher. That way you can connect 2 optical sources, and switch between them, rather than paying £90 for a D2/D2X.