Optical cable connection between sound card and speakers

[mrochester]

Hi all,

I have a Creative XFi Extreme Music sound card which has a 'flexi jack' that I believe does SPDIF out. My Logitech Z5500 speakers accept an optical connection. I have what I believe to be an optical cable. It has a long connection at one end, not unlike a standard 3.5mm jack, that seems to plug very nicely into the flexi jack on the soundcard. The other end plugs in very nicely into the speaker control panel. However, when I've changed the speakers to the Optical input, it says 'No Digital Data' on the screen.

I'm wonder if:

a) I have the correct cable?

and

b) If I have set it up right?

Thanks

Michael.

 

[Bob Wya Jnr]

Hi,

One subtle clue to the presence of a digital signal on an optical fibre cable is that you will see the laser light coming out the other end when it is plugged and everything is working OK!! Obviously don't look directly at this as coherent light has rather unfortunate affects on the human retina!!

There are 2 main kinds of SPDIF optical connector for audio signals:

1)

MiniTOS (actually a converter to from male miniTOS-right to female TOS-left)
(which is often plugged into hybrid socket which also supports analogue 3.5mm headphone jacks - used on a lot of laptops for example)

2)

TOS (commonly used on HiFi equipment)

Not sure what connector Creative used in their "flexi jack" as I've never owned a Creative soundcard (dodgy rep. and all that). Well I did return an OEM Xi-Fi Xtreme Gamer card after I found that a 50.00GBP card had no buildin optical output and no DD Live Encoding!! There is a definitely an optical connector on the flexijack I just didn't get one (a flexijack) with my card!! Probably a miniTOS hybrid socket??

Bob

 

[Phil2008]

I have a XFi Extreme Music, I bought 1 of these and and a coaxial cable and it works fine. You wont get optical working cos the card doesnt support optical.