I am looking to get a new sound card creative labs Z

But the OP, who we are trying to help, isn't using a DAC. So his best choice, which doesn't degrade over sane cable lengths is the Optical. It may work better for you because of the DAC(?) I am not sure. I would still think sending a optical signal to the DAC and let the DAC convert it would still be better... unless you have a shat DAC? I don't know, its a bit beyond me honestly. I have never used one (DAC).

This is where it gets confusing. I've taken it that the DAC process is performed by the soundcard (whether onboard or third-party). My suggestion would then be to output the analog signal from the card direct to the analog inputs of the OPs amp. I'm using the same reasoning I have used in my setups. And to go back deeper into the OPs original questions, it could be argued EAX is probably not really needed anymore (deprecated). In which case my suggestion would be to consider the Asus Xonar STX II as an option re soundcard using the RCA outputs to the amp.

DAC is cpu load, not onboard sound load. Onboard sound is still a "DAC" so to speak.


Digital input/transport -> DAC (onboard audio if applicable, receiver, headphone amp, etc) -> Analog output -> headphones/speakers



edit: The confusion is probably because some sound cards have their own processor to produce a digital output. Not all sound cards do this though. The digital signal still originates at the CPU level though. The quality of the DAC would be more important than the soundcard, as long as the throughput is the same.

All of this is mostly irrelevant if youre not using extremely high quality speakers/head sets.

edit 2: have you compared this creative labs to your own onboard audio? Is there a volume concern? Thats the only real benefit you'd get perhaps with a CL SB-z. Its 108 vs 116db snr. Inconceivable difference unless youre running true audiophile grade equipment. The preamp section is slightly beefier, but I imagine the onboard would over drive most cheap headsets. Im assuming you are using an amplified speaker system, its truly irrelevant.

Why do I bring this up? You clearly want a sound card.... get one that's actually good... the creative labs z is over priced junk. The comparable Asus Xonar Essence STX is 30$ more and is bringing a lot more to the table.

edit 3: EAX is laughable. Its like monster audio. You will hear a difference between the two because the card imparts a neutral sound until you turn it on. Comparing that to another decent sound card without EAX you wont hear a difference. Its on par with the simulated surround sound crap. All headphones and sound producing devices can replicate binaural sound.

+1 for the Essence STX or Phoebus from ASUS. Keeping in mind of course if you are not running headphones worth the need for a sound card like that, you are essentially wasting money.

As for EAX, I hate to tell you this, but it died a long time ago. So unless you are playing games non-stop from 2004 or so that actually take advantage of EAX, wanting a card just because of EAX is pointless because your games won't be running it anyway. Don't get me wrong, UT2k4 I am a huge fan of as a game that does support it, but.... Well, this is a list of the games that support EAX:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_EAX_support

Another thing is scouting mode. I heard examples of it with or with out. I cant hear a difference. But I do hear a significant difference between the creative and other cards. The creative seems to give sharper sounds from distances and up close compared to the other cards. At least that is what it sounds like to me. It could just be the card I have right now.

Well, as someone who has owned and/or currently owns cards from ASUS (EssenceSTX and Phoebus) and Creative (Titanium, TitaniumHD, and ZxR), assuming you have everything set up properly, they SHOULD, I say SHOULD, sound near identical with the slight exception being from each brand's choice of simulated surround sound. The only reason I am getting rid of my own Phoebus for example is because I had both it and the ZxR sitting here and with the more recent updates to the Creative drivers and software, I slightly prefer the interface a bit more with less hiccups. Both cards only powered my DT990's for gaming. I have a WooAudio WA7 hooked up with T90's for casual listening when outside games.... lol

Both fiber and coax connections are digital so degradation is practically all good or not working - it is possible to be right on the edge and end up with crackly sound but it's unlikely you'll land right on it by chance. Fiber can go further (think why it's used for long distance networking) and does not conduct noise but costs more and is more fragile, while coax is very cheap and very robust. (Hint: a cheap way to check fiber signal margin is to carefully pull it out and see how far it can go before the signal drops out. You should be able to pull it out by at least 1/4" if there's a good margin and you'll also learn what digital degradation actually sounds like.) HDMI is the best choice if you can get it to work properly since it natively supports more than 2 channels. Beware that some receivers (ironically, usually the more expensive ones) may add lag if you use the HDMI output to connect a monitor.

Also, a digital amplifier does not use DACs in the traditional sense. Instead, they use Delta Sigma to convert the PCM signal into a bitstream, amplify that, and then use low pass filtering to finish the conversion to analog. You could think of the whole unit as a DAC and in fact, they are sometimes called "power DACs". The analog inputs are only for compatibility and using them are akin to using VGA on a LCD monitor.

In the context of audio hardware, DAC generally refers to an external sound card. Here's one I designed that also happens to include a built in headphone amp:
https://github.com/NiHaoMike/OpenDAC-HD

I will suggest using DD Live or DTS connect/interactive again. Here's why; just about any game can be setup to run 5.1. The game sees it as a standard analog 5.1 output, but the audio chip then takes that signal and encodes it into a DTS stream which can be transmitted via optical or coax toslink to your receiver. Then your receiver decodes the DTS stream and gives you clean 5.1 sound.

If you use analog cables for the connection you need 6 coax lines which is messy, and...

All cables will attenuate, lowering signal strength, and also pick up noise. The longer the run, the more this effect is amplified; lower signal strength along with more noise. This is signal to noise ratio and the higher the better. An analog signal will pick up all this noise and the problem is that this is before the amp. So, the amp will then amplify the signal and all the noise as well. A digital signal...well actually all signals are really analog when looked at closely. The difference is that the tx and rx have worked out a deal when using their digital toslink ports. If the signal voltage is above a certain threshold it is a 1 and if it's below a certain threshold it's a 0 (may be more voltage levels involved for higher bandwidth, but let's keep it simple). So, even with a decent amount of noise introduced into the line during transmission, it is usually very obvious to the rx if the bits are a 1 out a 0. So, the noise really does just disappear. The signal has to be converted back to analog before hitting the amp. This is a very minimal distance within the receiver so the potential noise introduced will be minimal and a high signal strength with very low noise gets amplified.

Now I do appreciate top tier analog systems that use tube amps, etc, but a lot of those systems even use high end A/D and D/A converters to get the signal from one component to another. This is great for audiophile music. Warm, and a little fuzzy! But growing up with cassette tapes and even mom's old 8-track/record player/am/fm stereo really steered me towards the digital tx tech and getting it to work how I wanted it to. Before digital interface connections were really available i was using Dolby pro logic and at the time i thought it was the bees-knees! Then came DD and soon after DTS. Loved watching movies encoded with this tech as the sound was so clear! But I was very disappointed when I learned i could only get 2ch sound for my PC games over my toslink connections. I had to have a movie encoded in DD/DTS to experience this. So, I ran 3 siamese coax lines to get analog 5.1 from my games to my surround sound system, and just tolerated the noise like i did with my old cassette tapes. Then along comes on-the-fly DD/DTS encoding of 5.1 analog signals. Had to get the auzentech sound card soon after release to try it out and I was blown away by how much cleaner the sound was!

When I learned this past year that I could use the onboard audio on all my other rigs with a little driver trick and get the same DD/DTS on-the-fly encoding that my auzentech provided I was gitty!

Free to try provided you have the same toslink interface on both your PC and receiver, an on-hand optical/coax cable, and a supported onboard audio chip in your PC.

PS: I actually like digital coax toslink better than optical toslink, but use both to meet all my connection needs. They both support the same bandwidth, and I've read optical can have more judder although i haven't researched this enough to understand it fully. The coax connections and cables are much more durable and you can use any old red/yellow/white, red/white, or red/blue/green RCA coax cable that almost everyone has laying around somewhere.

Edit: I don't have an HDMI capable reciever, so toslink is still my best option. Not a fan of the HDCP handshake (and the lovely issues it presents) and have no immediate plans to upgrade. My understanding is that DD Live and DTS Connect can be enabled through the HDMI interface as well if the audio chip supports it.

jason4207 said:

The signal has to be converted back to analog before hitting the amp. This is a very minimal distance within the receiver so the potential noise introduced will be minimal and a high signal strength with very low noise gets amplified.

Click to expand...

That's a very common misconception. Digital amplifiers use Delta Sigma to convert PCM to a PWM/PDM bitstream, but that bitstream is still digital even though it can be converted to analog with a low pass filter. That bitstream is boosted in power before the low pass LC filter finishes the conversion to analog.
http://www.beis.de/Elektronik/DeltaSigma/DeltaSigma.html

Nice read! Thanks!