Ziel

This story starts all the way back in 2000. We got our first computer (a Gateway), and my parents put a lot of upgrades into it. One of which was adding a sound card, and upgrading the speakers. They got a set of Boston Acoustics BA735's, the digital-only version. They work great, have good sound and everything.

Last week, I finally got them to let me build them a new system. I put everything together, and got it all working. I did not put a sound card in. Just planned on using the onboard sound. I temporarily connected plugged in the monitor's built-in speakers, just to make sure I had all the drivers in and everything.

We finally took the machine upstairs, and I got it all hooked up again, this time using the 735's. Much to my dismay, the sound didn't work. I put the monitor speakers back in, and they worked, so it wasn't a driver issue. I reconnected the 735's countless times. Nothing. Brought my own speakers and connected them, and they worked. Put the 735's on my computer, and got nothing.

Did a little research on the internet, and finally realized that the problem was an analog/digital dispute. The speakers are digital-only, but the mobo can only put out analog signals. So I tried the obvious, and took the sound card from the old comp and put it in the new one. It's an old SoundBlaster Live Value card. Unfortunately, Vista and the drivers don't agree, so no good there.

So now, we're stuck figuring what we have to do from here. I figure there's two options: Either get different speakers, or get a sound card capable of digital output. Problem is, that I want to fix this as cheaply as possible, while still having decent sound quality. Because of that, I figure the sound card is a better way to go.

I guess the first question is this: Are there any cards out there can can send both analog or digital through the line-out anymore? Obviously the old card could (speaker cable is 3.5mm on computer end, RCA on the other). If so, what would be the cheapest option for this solution?

Or, should I just get a cheap card with digital RCA out, and get an RCA cable for the speakers?

Again, I'm looking for the cheapest solution.

PunterCam

You've named the cheapest solution - new sound card - so go and buy the cheapest one you can find. As it's outputting the sound digitally there are precisely no gains to be made with an expensive card.

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Ziel

I was hoping for a recommendation of a cheaper card that is known to work for this. When searching for cards, I'll see that one will claim to be 'digital', but I want to make sure that that really means they can output digital signals. Especially on the cards with no rca (spdif) out. I'm left to be skeptical of whether or not any given card will be able to put out a digital signal from the 3.5 mm line out jack. I want verification from somebody who has used or at least had experience with a given card that can guarantee me that it will work.

StrangleHold: That was one of the first things I did. There was no option for changing the output to digital.

MDalton10

This is not correct. The higher end X-Fi card do reencode digital using all of snazzy little Crystalizers and stuff. Go get yourself and new soundcard with Optical and use this little tool http://www.amazon.com/Cables-Go-Opti.../ref=pd_cp_e_0.

bomberboysk

Digital audio via coaxial or toslink has no gain from an expensive card, the reason is, with digital your receiver decodes the sound, while when running analog your sound card decodes the sound. With analog, there is a HUGE improvement with a sound card over onboard, while with digital there is little to no difference.

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MDalton10

X-Fi Titanium : Dolby Digital Live!, which encodes the audio from any program into a Dolby Digital bit-stream to be sent via optical S/PDIF to a surround-sound speaker system with a decoder

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StrangleHold

Look in your Sound setup in Control Panel and see if you can change it to digital out put.

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Welcome to the show

PunterCam

Get down your local shop and ask - I'm sure even the cheapest creative sound blasters have had digital outs for half a decade.

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Logan Edmiston

Just get a new sound card, they can be pretty inexpensive and it sure beats trashing the old speakers which you yourself said had great sound.

Logan John Edmiston