MrCrawdad:I used to love Turtle Beach back in the Mid 90's. I am glad they are making a comeback. Thanks to companies such as Asus, Turtle Beach and Auzentech, Creative no longer has a strangle hold on the music market. I push the Auzentech Prelude beacause of its quality components, X-fi processor and its DSP settings which are second to none. Too bad the drivers are primarily Creative. But in all honesty, they have been much improved in the Vista Enviroment to where they are above functional. Given Creative's Driver history, I would completely understand anyone's apprehension here.
I don't know if they are making a comeback.... The Riviera is a very old card and support has been quite poor with Vista. I looked at their web site about a year ago to see if they had a new card worth considering (because the Riviera wouldn't work with Vista) and at the time they had very little to offer.
I glanced over this item and did not see any evidence that it actually will downsample digital 5.1 or 7.1 audio into 2.0 analog stereo? I see that it can pass and or combine one or the other?
I may have missed it, but I would want to be sure it actually converts.
Crabber
MrCrawdad,
I followed your advice and built a second HTPC, I made the home audio PC an always on server that plays the stereo music, netflix, slide shows and DVD's for the whole house. I call it MCPC for Media Center PC and besides some of the server items and home control in the background it is all Media Center, the new HTPC is used also shared as my personal PC, my office is about 35' from the media rack. I ran a 50' DVI cable and extended a USB hub through Cat5 for keyboard etc. In the theater it is DTS Blu-ray etc. Anyway wanted to thank you for your help it is all working and sounding great! Biggest challenge was the IR, but I got it worked out.
Thanks, I don't know why I never thought of that!
MrCrawdad:Glad my ramblings are semi-helpful. Responding to your inquires as ordered: 1. The asus Xonar is an excellent soundcard. It replicates sound to such an exactness, that it sounds rather flat. The dsp filters are immature and sounds horrible. I had tried to make it work for two high end systems, but in the end I had to return both cards. It just seemed to be non immersive for both audio and theater applications. 2. Decoding and downmixing HD-Dolby or Dolby-DTS for analog is generally a software process and qualty greatly depends on the Blu-ray software player used. I think this area will greatly improve as multithreading becomes mainstream. 2b. The analog output would feed your multizone system with a very nice clean sound. Problem is you will be limited to 2.0 sound unless you want to lose your center channel where most of the dialog resides. Thats why I mentioned 2 audio sources unless you want to constantly be adjusting your speaker setup in the control panel. One source for the Den and another for the rest of the house. The Auzntech prelude or any audio card with an X-Fi chip for that matter, has variable phase shifting that makes any audio source completely immersive along with its crystallizer and EAX DSP audio effects. To contrast with the Xonar, it feels extremely accurate but very flat. I love your setup along with your electronic broom closet concept (keep the kiddies out). You absolutely need 2 audio sources to accommodate your 5.1/7.1 speaker setup in the Den and 2.0 for your multi-zone distribution system. I am sure the guys at AVS forum can advise as well. For my father I am using a Vista HTPC and several S-video tuners with his DirectTV satellites. I converted several old xboxes to play SD TV shows, movies, music for several rooms in his house. When I get him a component tuner card for HD, I will also get a 360 extender for his HD needs. I have to keep things very simple for him as I barely trust him with a cell phone. A possible suggestion is to have two htpc system in the closet. One acts as a server and Blu-ray source for your den. The second acts as a slave with network links to the server for divx movies, recorded tv shows, music and the like. I would start out with the onboard audio first (analog or digital) for the slave before buying two sound cards. I think there also exists a linux distro that is designed for whole house video and audio. If your distribution system includes an IR relay network you can get by with just one extender/xbox/xbox360 for the secondary audio/video source for your multi-zone receiver. I will still recommend a HTPC with the same PVR software as the den for functionality, diversity, consistency, ease of use if the Wife Acceptance Factor is a priority since you can use a RF or a class1 Bluetooth remote independent of an IR relay. Cheers.
Crabber:I glanced over this item and did not see any evidence that it actually will downsample digital 5.1 or 7.1 audio into 2.0 analog stereo? I see that it can pass and or combine one or the other? I may have missed it, but I would want to be sure it actually converts. Crabber
I'm going to revive this thread in the hopes that someone can answer this elusive question for me. NO ONE talks about this or has this same need. There's been talk that the X-fi music xtreme outputs both analog and digital at the same time. But most people talk about using the Spdif and then 2-channel analog. I want to know if it outputs Spdif and 5.1 analog at the same time. I don't want to run the audio to another room; I want to run the Spdif and the 5.1 analogs to my receiver. Since I don't have HDMI, I use the analog outputs for bluray and the Spdif for everything else. But right now I'm accomplishing this by using 2 sound cards. I don't want to do that, as I think it is causing me problems with the mkv's I've been creating and trying to play. I was hoping that I could get an X-fi music xtreme card and connect both the analogs and the Spdif; set the audio option in PowerDVD to 5.1 and use Spdif for SageTV. What card(s) will allow me to do this, and does anyone know if this will work?
Oh yeah...I read that the x-fi card outputs simultaneously in Vista; is this true for XP (32 bit) as well?
While expensive, and not for everyone, the MSI Diva board was designed with this in mind. It has a separate 2 channel analog out on it and it works great. I wish other manufacturers would make something similar to it, because a version 2 of this board that came in either a Intel or AMD flavor would be the perfect board for a htpc.
It boils down to the audio drivers. Since this is an old thread now, I too am interested in what boards and sound cards people are using that simultaneously output digital and analog at the same time.
Jay
Growler:My needs are simple- I want to hook up my MC like my Tivo; outputting analog to the TV and digital to my AV receiver. I would have thought by now a mfr would have solved this.