Audigy2 ZS Digital Out Issues

I picked up a Yamaha TSS-1 5.1 speaker set a few months back and it's been working great on Analog, but I'm annoyed that I can't use all my speakers (analog only allows for four channel + sub).
The initial problem was this: my speakers have two forms of digital input: Coax and Toslink (digital standard). The Audigy2's digital out, however, is a miniplug jack. After some googling I found a nice 10ft toslink to miniplug cable for cheap, ordered it, and got it a few days later.
I plugged it all up and I get no sound on digital input. I've tried setting the card on "digital output only," rebooting, updating drivers, etc. etc.
I'm wondering if there's something I'm missing here, or if I probably just got a bogus cable.

Well, it's easy enough to test your cable with a multimeter, at least enough to see if it's shorting somewhere in the cable or not. As far as the audigy goes, your center / bass channel is the same channel, and it's also the channel that can be switched to digital; it's analog by default. There are also a few more options for digital connectors that use SPDIF. Two of them are on the card itself, and there's a few more digital connectors on the faceplate if you have a Live!-Drive.

I know the Audigy2 ZS plat/pro have multiple digital outs, but the plain ZS just has the miniplug jack. (if that's what you were referring to)

Yeah, all Live/Audigy cards have one analog/digital 1/8" connector on the back. As far as I know, they also have a small, two-pin SPDIF connector on the card itself (inside the chassis; not visible on the outside). However, it sounds like what you really need is an optical output to your Yamaha TSS1. As far as I know, the only proper way to do this by adding either a 3rd party daughter card to the Audigy, or a Creative Live!-Drive, which has optical connectors on it.

Just to clarify, what do you mean by "Toslink" connector? Are you talking about optical? If so, my comment about the multimeter is not only moot, but stupid. :swt: If not, exactly what are we talking about? I think we have a bit of variation on our terminology here.

I have the same card as you and I looked in the Quick Start Guide. Basically what it says is that there are two ways to have digital output:

1) Get a RCA to miniplug adapter. The minoplug goes in the digital output of the card and the other end goes into the RCA (coax) cable which goes into your speakers (receiver)

2) Get a SPDIF cable and a DIN to miniplug adapter. Again, the miniplug goes into the card, the other end to the SPDIF cable and the SPDIF cable to your speakers (receiver)

Of course you have to buy those separately.

The reason they do this ?
Those are not facts but assumptions.

You need the SPDIF cable if you have "digital" speakers (that is, pc speakers with digital input) but you need the regular coax cable if you have a receiver w/ digital input. That is why, IMO, they put a miniplug on the card, which standardizes the connection, in a way.
About those digital speakers.....no speakers are digital or analog. But what happens with pc speakers is that the amp w/ pre-amp is integrated in the sub (that's how my speakers are made) so digital speakers are no more than speakers w/ digital input.

you could hook up cheap-ass speakers to a high-end receiver w/ digital inputs and get digital sound. The sound wouldn't be very good, because of the speakers quality, but it would still be digital.

Anti-Trend said:

Just to clarify, what do you mean by "Toslink" connector? Are you talking about optical? If so, my comment about the multimeter is not only moot, but stupid. :swt: If not, exactly what are we talking about? I think we have a bit of variation on our terminology here.

Click to expand...

yea by Toslink I meant optical, my bad.

I'll try the miniplug to RCA thing.

icking fudiot said:

I'll try the miniplug to RCA thing.

Click to expand...

Good idea, that's what I'd do. Any SPDIF to optical converter under $50 can't work too well :( BTW, those are very nice speakers; hope you get those babies working properly. :)