Thread: 5.1 channel Sound cards with onboard toslink (not in the add on case)

Originally Posted by psyclobe

I wonder if that digital 3.5mm jack can be converted to toslink to then go to the back of the alpine.

Suggestions?

-Jason

Yes

3.5mm mono to rca adapter then one of these
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/a...s.html#pof-820

isn't the whole point of the toslink to have lossless media until the alpine unit converts the signal to analog? it seems that you are going to add more connections (see also: more noise) I am wondering if one of these would fit your bill.

EMU 0404
-or-
EMU 1212

Unfortunately they are only stereo cards, not 5.1. bummer.

ESI Juli@ is an option.

From their site:

Built in digital optical output - 5.1 Dolby digital support
- Digital coaxial I/O (with support for up to 192kHz) - 5.1 Dolby digital support

No idea if that means it does DTS though, I presume it's a given if it does DD 5.1?

Originally Posted by Durzel

ESI Juli@ is an option.

From their site:
No idea if that means it does DTS though, I presume it's a given if it does DD 5.1?

DTS and DD5.1 are different products. If there is DTS, there's a good chance the lower DD5.1 is also available, but DD5.1 does not usually imply DTS.

As for converting digital 3.5mm to rca to optical, no noise is introducted because it remains digital. There should be no loss of quality in converting digital on the rca to digital over optical since it's just the medium that's changed.

-psyrex

If I'm not mistaken, those 3.5mm jacks that are dual-purpose are analog/optical outs, using the 3.5mm TOSlink adapter. So you wouldn't need to convert to RCA then to optical, because the adapter converts the port straight to a standard-size TOSlink port.