Dolby/DTS pass through card?

Hey all.

I'm in the market for a new audio card. I used to have a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro (what a name...) which died about a year ago. I've been using the on-board surround out on my motherboard, but aside from inferior audio quality, there are some driver issues which cause it to fart every once in a while (in games this causes lag) and generally I'm not too happy with it.

I would go out and buy a brand new X-Fi card from Creative, but for many reasons I'm not very happy with how they do business (if you're familiar with the Daniel_K story) and how they design their products.

Mainly what I'm missing with Creative cards (and this is a big deal) is the ability to recieve Dolby Digital and DTS signals through the optical in, and run them through the decoder to send the signal through the speakers. Put simply, I want to be able to play surround from my Xbox.

I have a custom-built amp which only accepts 6 analog inputs for 5.1 surround, and to get surround sound from external devices i need some sort of decoder. It gave me no end of frustration to know that while my sound card (the Audigy 2) had a dolby digital decoder, i was PREVENTED FROM USING IT because Creative or Microsoft deemed it unacceptable (for DRM reasons, is what I remember reading)

In any case, does anybody know of a card which can take an optical Dolby Digital/DTS stream and send the analog signal out to the speakers?

I'm not really concerned about budget. I don't mind paying around $200 for a good high quality sound card which can do what I want. This would solve so many problems for my set-up.

Thanks for your time.

What if you had an X-Fi chip based sound card made by another company? M-Audio and Auzentech are great audio card makers...

Does anybody know if these other cards will decode optical surround input?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sconeman

Does anybody know if these other cards will decode optical surround input?

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I have an Auzentech Prelude. I know that in Vista, that it does something with DTS.

I'd check into their products if I were you.

This what you're looking for?

http://www.auzentech.com/site/produc...ude.php#dtsint

Quote:

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DTS® Interactive provides a single cable connection, either coaxial or optical, to your DTS-enabled surround sound system. An Auzentech sound card that supports DTS Interactive will re-encode your stereo or multi-channel audio sources into a DTS audio signal and send it to any DTS enabled system. The receiving system could be powered PC multi-channel speakers, an Audio Visual surround receiver, or any other surround sound decoder. The installation process is simple and avoids analog cable clutter. Source files may have as few as two- and as many as 5.1-channels before being up-sampled.

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nope.


in fact i'm looking for the opposite. That mixes everything into a digital output signal. I want to decode digital INput into analog output.

I think the ASUS Xonar D2/D2X will do what you want. It has an optical input.
http://www.bigbruin.com/2008/asusd2x_1

Yes, many cards do have optical input. My Audigy 2 did. Unfortunately this is a really nit-picky detail that NONE OF THEM ADVERTISE which is that I need 5.1 through the optical in to be decoded.

According to Turtle Beach, no sound card will decode digital AC3/DTS because of licensing issues.
http://support.turtlebeach.com/site/.../588318928.asp

And a rather in-depth thread about it at AVSForums:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...0#post15846010

You could always find the exact same card as the one that you had that died.

Find for cheap on eBay or elsewhere online.

If you have the room in your system, you could even run a multiple card setup

I know that both Asus and Auzentech have cards that will offload ANY Dolby/DTS format to your receiver up to and including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. Only over HDMI, though.

The best thing to do would be buy a modern receiver with analog outs and use it as a pre/pro, keep your current amplifier, and get one of those cards from Asus or Auzentech.

The cheapest and easiest thing to do would be to find a replacement Audigy on ebay or for sale forums.