I recently bought a "toslink - 3,5 mm optical cable". Since im trying to hook up my soundcard with my reciver I thought this was the best way to do it.

However this wont work, the cable is fine. I tried recording some music via the cable on to my minidsc "toslink out -> minidisc line-in(optical)". I noted that I could see the light coming from the cable in the 3,5 mm end. Upon connecting the 3,5 mm end to my computer and taking a look at the other "toslink" end I dont see any light. Is this because im not supposed to, or is it because my soundblaster live 1024 wont send a signal. And yes ive set it to "digital out only" in the soundmixer.

Maybe this card dont even have optical 3,5 mm out, but I dont see how it could be digital if that's the case, I have a soundblaster live 5.1 @ work, will it work with that card?

Any ideas?

I'm not sure about this, but I think the only SBLive cards with Optical Output(s) are the Platinum series, where the optical output(s) (covered by the little black plug/thing) are on the front of your computer in the bay occupied by the bit that makes it a "Platinum" series card. Sorry, but I can't remember what you call this thing.

I think the output on the back of the cards is a digital output specifically for speakers (5.1 decoding amps).

I could of course be talking complete crap, but I do feel that some of what I am writing is true :-?

Hope this is of some small help to you. I have an Audigy oem myself and although it has SPDIF out, it doesn't have optival out.

Tonezone

"specifically for speakers (5.1 decoding amps)" Oh my reciver can decode both DTS and DD signals, which i am trying to extract. Or maybe you mean this is a thing that creative have for their own speakers/amps? SOme sort of special output, i guess that's possible. I have no idea of what this output do = D

The black plugthink is the "toslink" i belive. And yes the platinumseries have em indeed. I belive they call the thingy in the front the "live-drive"
I however have no toslink output but a 3.5 mm digital output, if this is a optical output or not remains to be answerd. I dont think that's the case, but i would be happy if it was, atleast on the Soundlbaster live 5.1
Because i dont see how you could extract 5.1 sound from a single output if it wasn't optical/digital

Thanks for your reply

I have been through almost the same thing as you

Here's what I learned:

The 3.5MM jack on the card can be used as a digital output to your receiver. You would need a 3.5MM -> standard RCA convertor (similar to the "Y" splitters people but on their cards to get L/R analogue out, except its only one RCA ouput plug - no "Y"). This standard RCA connector would then connect to a "coaxial" digital in on your receiver.

Warning: the output level on this jack is MUCH higher than the spec calls for for digital out (b/c its intended to go to speakers, not another peice of audio equipment). I myself never even tried this route b/c I didnt want to damage my brand new Denon AVR-1802 Receiver.

This brings us to option 2:

Use an addon card made by creative called a "Digital I/O Card" The generic sounding name makes it difficult to search the net for. I ended up finding one bundled with a Live 5.1 in an ebay auction and snapped it up.

The version I got was the older version with no optical out. This is fine b/c my stereo has coax in, so i used those. The current version of the I/O card has an optical out and connects via a ribbon cable to the pins on your live card. (http://www.americas.creative.com/product...ategory=10). Note that these only connect to your live card if you have the set of pins that have the higher pin count than older model live cards.


Good luck

Oops, I just re-read the page and noted the card will work on Live cards with the S/PDIF_ EXT (2x6 pin header), not just cards with AUD_ EXT (2x20 pin header).

Having the 2x20 header just means you can use more of the features of the add-in card (see the table at the bottom of the link provided above)

No orginal Sblive's have optical out or 5.1 support, you'll have to use a Live 5.1, so if u use a newer Live drive 5.1 on the older lives they won't work, this is also true for the SB512, as it uses the same emu101k proc as the Orginal Live!