<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 12:54 PM, Rob Beard <<a href="mailto:rob@esdelle.co.uk">rob@esdelle.co.uk</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Hi folks,<br><br>I'm hoping someone might be able to advise me on an issue I have trying<br>to find a sound card.<br>
<br>Basically I've upgraded my PC to a new Phenom 9600 with MSI K9A2<br>motherboard (the cheap version). Now my old motherboard (an MSI P35<br>Neo2 with Pentium Dual Core E2160) had SPDIF output on the motherboard<br>
which I was able to use an SPDIF header with to output AC3 and DTS audio<br>to my surround sound amp.<br><br>The new board does have an SPDIF header on the board but it is only<br>2-pin rather than a 3-pin header. I have tried enabling the SPDIF<br>
output in the Alsa mixer and sending the DVD audio to SPDIF using the<br>passthrough but I don't get anything (despite trying different<br>combinations of the 3 pins).<br><br>So, after giving up on that I decided to look for a sound card that<br>
would enable SPDIF passthrough.<br><br>I've bought an external Sweex USB 5.1 Sound Card which has TOSLINK<br>in/out. It's supposedly based on the CMedia CM106 chip. This works in<br>Windows perfectly well as far as Windows sounds are sent over the<br>
TOSLINK connection to my amp. So far so good.<br><br>I then reboot into Ubuntu 7.10 and although I can play sounds through<br>the analogue outputs on the card I can't get anything through the<br>TOSLINK connection, if I try SPDIF passthrough I get what sounds like<br>
noise (a bit like if I was going to play a data CD in a CD player).<br><br>I've also got a SoundBlaster Live 5.1 Digital (I think it's from an old<br>Dell) which I've tried connecting the digital out to my amp using a<br>
3.5mm to 2 x Phono cable and this doesn't seem to work either (I've<br>tried all sorts but from what I can tell it needs some specific commands<br>sending to the EMU chip?). The analogue connection works but the<br>
digital connection doesn't do anything. I wasn't able to try this in<br>Windows as I can't seem to download a driver, just a driver update which<br>won't install!!!<br><br>So I'm on the lookout for a new sound card which is supported by Ubuntu<br>
7.10 (or 8.04) AMD64. I have an coax SPDIF to optical TOSLINK adaptor<br>(which does work - my amp has optical input) so either with optical<br>TOSLINK, coax SPDIF outputs or both would be ideal.<br><br>Would something on the CMI8768+8CH chip (such as this:<br>
<a href="http://www.ebuyer.com/product/106539" target="_blank">http://www.ebuyer.com/product/106539</a>) be suitable?<br><br>If anyone has got any suggestions, or even knows how to get the SPDIF<br>output on a SB Live 5.1 Digital working then that would be ideal.</blockquote>
<div> </div>
<div>I can *strongly* recommend two cards:</div>
<div> </div>
<div>TurtleBeach Riviera: <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829118105">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829118105</a></div>
<div>AOpen Cobra AW870LP</div>
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<div>The first is a 5.1 with optical that *just works* out of the box with ALSA and passthrough (no crazy asoundrc files) and the second is a low profile card that works just as well in case you have a smaller case and are looking for that. I cannot recommend the Riviera strongly enough for optical passthrough.</div>
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<div>Kevin</div></div>