decent SPDIF surround system?

[dieselboy]

my mate gave me a creative 5.1 surround system and its very good. little 8" sub woofer and 5 little speakers that sit nicely around the room. they are analogue. im wondering could i get some better sound volume and quality from a better system but which?

my computer has an onboard realtek AC'97 card with 6 headphone jack type things and a seperate SPDIF slot. my system uses 3 of those analogue ports, one for the sub and im not sure what the other 2 do but they are for sound output. i have at least one input for the microphone, and the PC runs windows vista.

does anyone have any recommendations? what is the benefit of using the spdif output?
cheers

[wishbone]

The spdif is a 'sony phillips digital interface' It transfers 6 channels of sound through 1 cable. (or 2 channel audio in a digital format)

What are looking at the system to do ? watch films or play games ?


If films then I'd say look at richer sounds for a sepaerate home theater amp and buy 3 pairs of decent budget hifi speakers (mission or kef etc) Then add a powered sub and blow your mates system to oblivion....

If its for games then you'd be better off going for an analogue system as most pc's can't convert the 3d 'direct sound' (or whatever games run these days) into dolby digital (ac3) for the spdif socket to send out.

Hope that makes sense

Rob.

[dieselboy]

ah ok thanks for that info!
well, i use my current setup for both. i have a 1080p samsung monitor i use for my PC which i watch films on as well, and its also wired up to the xbox via the hdmi / dvi ports and the sound from the xbox is wired through the PC and it gets output in surround sound with the creative system.. the xbox is capable of spdif optical output but then i would have to keep changing it over when i want to use the pc :/

[wishbone]

I'm assuming your watching blueray stuff on the PC?

What dvd / blueray software player are you using ?

How is the xbox sound input to the pc ?


Rob.

[dieselboy]

I'm assuming your watching blueray stuff on the PC?

What dvd / blueray software player are you using ?

How is the xbox sound input to the pc ?


Rob.

na no blueray, i just download 1080p films and watch it with VLC
for the xbox i have the hdmi / dvi port connected to the xbox and monitor, for the sound i have a standard avi cable in the other slot on the xbox, then from that i convert the RCA sound outputs into a headphone male jack which goes into the input on the PC. then the output is through the speakers.
works pretty well

[wishbone]

Well you'd need to find out what sound options the ripped films come with..

For a wild guess I'd say that your best bet is to invest in a home theater receiver, but get one with analogue inputs that you can connect your pc outs to. This will give you 'proper' surround from the xbox and whatever your pirate films come with for dvd.... Will also allow you to connect a dvd player to it to get proper dolby digital for normal dvd's.

That type of receiver is pretty old school so you should get something fairly cheap. Yamaha springs to mind..

Rob.

[dieselboy]

thanks for the advice!