Connecting receiver to original Sound Blaster Live! Value (1 Viewer)

[Stephen Hopkins]

I'm planning on receiving a low key HTIB (something less than $300, probably something from pioneer because i trust the brand and it comes in silver which will match all of my PC components) for use as a second/bedroom system in conjunction with my PC.

My PC currently has the original Sound Blaster Live! Value sound card, not one of the newer 5.1 versions. It does, however, have a digital spdif output. Will this pass a DD/DTS signal from the computer to the receiver from the computer while watching DVDs in PowerDVD? Or will I need to buy one of the newer 5.1 Sound Blaster cards?

Thanks.

 

[Benny G]

Yes, it sure will. Just be sure to switch the output to "Digital Output Only". You can find the option by clicking the speaker icon in the system tray, then going to the Advance button on the bottom left.

 

[Kris McLaughlin]

Stephen, one thing you might want to check is the specific model# of your Live! card. Mine just had a sticker right on the card itself.
Some of the early ones had a problem with the S/PDIF outputting 10x the voltage it was supposed to be, with the potential for damaging a receiver. Here's a thread discussing the problem.
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...sblive+voltage
Cheers,

 

[Stephen Hopkins]

Thanks for the responses guys.
Does anyone know exactly what models have the voltage problems? I would like to find out if mine is one of them, because it's said that it's prone to happen w/ Denon receivers, and i have a bid on a Denon 1601 HTIB package. If mine is one of them, i won't even risk it, i'll go ahead and pick up a Live 5.1 on ebay and use the mini-toslink connector on it.
Any other suggested sound cards in the $30 range? I've seen one called Theater Excel for $22 that comes with a daughter card with optical and coaxial digital inputs and outputs that would be nice. Anyone know anything about it?
Thanks again

 

[Patrick TX]

I bought one of these a couple of months back (it was $40 shipped). I pulled the Sound Blaster Live value from my Dell Dimension 4500, and plugged this puppy in. WOW, it is one BAD@$$ Soundcard! It's a STEAL at under $50. Some people have reported problems with Win 9X though, & the tech support is nothing to write home about they say. I have XP, and it was a 2 minute install.
http://www.buy.com/retail/clearance/...008850&loc=114

 

[Han]

I haven't checked lately, but with Creative Labs now 3 generations past the original Live cards, I don't think there's much of a price difference between Live and Live 5.1 cards.

I currently have an original Live going into my HK 310 receiver (spdif), and I noticed it had a little problem locking into the DD 2.0 signals after coming back to a DVD's menu from a DD 5.1 track. A loud pop sound. This wasn't an issue with my Yamaha 795a receiver hooked to the card, and wasn't an issue with my HK plugged into a standalone DVD player. So that combination seems to have problems. Anyway, I just thought I'd mention that "for the record" even though you're likely not going to have that setup, Stephen.

 

[AaronBatiuk]

i'll go ahead and pick up a Live 5.1 on ebay and use the mini-toslink connector on it

Careful, Stephen, the mini-jack digital output on the back of the SBLive!s is not a toslink connector. It is an electrical connector. All that you need to do to connect this to a receiver is to buy a stereo 1/8 plug to two RCA jack adapter from radio shack here and plug a good quality video cable into it and into a coaxial digital input on your receiver.
Alternately, you can buy a toslink input/output adapter like the ones from Hoontech (I have one, and it works great).

 

[RodrigoF]

Follow this thread for an cheap and easy to do home-made coax-to-optical cable:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...=sound+blaster