Digital Out to Home Stereo

Just a quick note for any who who have a digital input into their stereo reciever (an RCA(coaxial) type).

Now that I can control empeg via my pocketpc (see VNC thread), I finally got around to seeing if I could do anything about the rather noisy 75' run of cheap (and I DO mean cheap) Ratshack wire that connects the output of my soundcard to the input of my stereo (downstairs). It's terminated at either end with RCA connectors. I'd always had a problem with 60 cycle hum if turned my line out to less than about 90% on the PC, which is my usual way of controlling volume as my main listening area is neither next to my stereo nor my PC. I purchased the Digital I/O accessory for my Creative Soundblaster. http://www.soundblaster.com/accessories/optical-io/

The installation was very easy (although it does litter lots of mostly useless bundled software onto your PC). Despite the really cheap wire and chincy crimp jobs at either end the digital signal came through no problem. I put winamp at 1% volume, cranked my amp downstairs and there was no, I mean zero, noise.

So despite all those Monster Cable ads stating that your digital signal will be grossly distorted if you don't use a $45 3' patch cable, you can get good results over a long, crappy wire.

Oh yeah, I also got to use the left channel to run digital back up to my PC. Just 'cuz I could!

-Zeke

(disclaimer: I know good cables are worth their weight in gold in a car, and I do own some of those $$ patch cables)

just say you weren't paying much attention...

Damn... and I was hoping to find someone had hacked the LED's on the EMpeg to output Toslink.

Definitely DESPITE the marketing pressure, Digital is (for the most part) easy. It either works or it doesn't. It's all ones and zeros and if you have something messed up to the point that the machine can't tell a ON pulse from an OFF... You won't have to worry about distortion, it just won't work.

Of course, time synch and jitter and all that "crap" can come into play, but the last time I checked, even the experts were saying that the only time you'd notice that level of distortion was on a testbed looking EXACTLY for that. Real life, the only people that notice are the marketers. (in the DIGITAL domain)

It's all ones and zeros (...) the only time you'd notice that level of distortion was on a testbed looking EXACTLY for that.

It all depends on the DACs you use . . . .
Only when the they are of similar quality it doesn't matter where you convert the binary to sound. Whenever the DAC later up the chain is better than the one at the source, I'd try to make an analogue connect work first . .

2p





Henno
mk2 6 nr 6

It all depends on the DACs you use


Of course... I was referring ONLY to the transmission medium.

A monster cable Digital cable is not , regardless of their marketing, going to give you BETTER sound quaility over a ratshack digital cable (or not marketed as a digital cable, but carrying digital information). I can't count the number of times I've wanted to throttle a marketing droid trying to sell a $90 toslink cable, because it will "sound clearer and more dynamic".... IT's all F*CKING ones and zeros... The DAC doesn't care if your ones are 40 times more intense than the ratshack cable... As long as it can tell it's a one, it's going to sound exactly the same... And if it can't tell it's a one, it just isn't going to work.

There is no middle of the line with regards to the transmission media... It works, or it doesn't. It's not going to effect the sound character.

But, I have to admit, I'd still probably shoot for slightly less capable DACS on the remote end of a very long interconnect rather than going analog and dealing with those problems.... But the obvious solution to that is just to never buy anything with less than perfect DAC's.

My only disappointment was that the Creative software in the box didn't have a utility to output the mp3 encoded signal to the wire. I've got a H/K reciever and would like to try its mp3 decoding just for fun (and my CD & DVD won't do mp3 CD-R's). I'm still pleased as punch because I didn't have to pull fresh wires or somehow wirelessly extend my LAN to the stereo to control the empeg.

This does bring up a question though, is it technically (with the current hardware) possible to route the mp3 stream right to one of the RCA jacks in a format that could be understood by other (stereo) devices? I know fantastically little about the digital encoding schemes used by stereos. I realize it would have to be an MP3 encoded stream and I'm sure the DAC's in the empeg are better than 99.9% of the gear out there, but I just wonder if it may (someday) be a software configurable feature.

-Zeke

just say you weren't paying much attention...

Your RECIEVER does Mp3 decoding????? What model is it? I've never heard of that (although I've been out of those circles recently).

RE: creating a digital out from one of the existing RCA... I don't THINK it's feasible (I'm not going to say it's impossible), but Hugo would really be the definitive source for that....

Harmon Kardon AVR-510. Available through Crutchfield, among others. I'm quite pleased. So far it's been able to handle everything I've tried to do with it.

-Zeke

just say you weren't paying much attention...

You could make a hack board to do it if you wanted. You'd need a Cirrus logic CS8405 and hook it up to the I2S pads we put on the mk2 PCB just in case anyone was interested :)

Not really a project for the non-electronic minded though.

Hugo

Not with my soldering skills! Neat to know it could be done though.

-Zeke

just say you weren't paying much attention...

Same BUS on the MKI??

TommyE

Yes, it's there on the mk1 too.

Hugo