Hi everyone! I thought I would give you an update of my recent process of hooking up my SB Live! Player 1024 to my Pioneer VSX-808RDS receiver using a Digital Output Module from Creative Labs (http://store.europe.creative.com/) and a 10 m TOSLink-TOSLink cable from optiCompo (http://www.opticompo.com/). As you might guess, the Digital Output Module arrived today and I was finally ready for setting it all up. First of all, the Digital Output Module is a little box which connects to the SB Live! Player 1024 only (no other sound card in the Live! series has the special 3.5mm connector for connecting the Digital Output Module). The Digital Output Module was US$36 including shipping and can be found at: http://store.europe.creative.com/detail.asp?pid=1027 It has two SPDIF outputs (which mainly correspond to front and rear speaker digital output), and each of these consist of both an optical TOSLink output and an RCA (coaxial) output. I don't know if one can use both TOSLink and RCA at the same time, though... When you use 3D DirectSound or EAX you should use SPDIF output 1 as front output, and SPDIF 2 as rear output (if you want to). In all other cases you should use SPDIF 1, which then corresponds to a regular front speaker output like I said earlier. The box I got from Creative contained the Digital Output Module (of course!), a how-to-get-technical-support booklet, a single paper with installation instructions and instructions on how to use the Digital Output Module, a 1.5-2.0 m TOSLink-to-mini-TOSLink optical cable to hook up the Digital Output Module to a portable MiniDisc recorder with a mini-TOSLink input, and three (!) identical CD:s with LiveWare! 3.0 (drivers etc.) but only for Windows 95/98/NT4.0, _not_ for Windows 2000. I noticed that the basic drivers for the SB Live! series of sound cards shipped with Windows 2000 Professional never gave any output to the digital output (nor to the analog rear-out jack on the card, no matter what speaker configuration I selected under Sound/Multimedia in the Control Panel), so I downloaded the latest driver from the following URL: http://www.soundblaster.com/drivers/welcome.asp?reg=0&OS=Win2k&prod=sblive&Select=Get+Files&x=56&y=7 The correct procedure seems to be having the basic drivers that came with Windows 2000 Professional installed, and then running the downloaded file which will replace the driver with Creative's own. If one wants a lot of extra bells and whistles, like an advanced mixer with lots of fine-tuning capabilities etc., LiveWare! 3.0 for Windows 2000 is available for download at the following URL, but it is approximately 20 MB so it may be a bit unnecessary if you only need drivers for the sound card: http://www.soundblaster.com/liveware/w2k/download.asp Anyway, after installing the driver everything worked as it should. The only thing I could complain about is that I'll have to turn up the volume on my stereo pretty much. It seems like the digital output is at quite a bit lower volume than the analog outputs. I have set the volume sliders at the next highest mark in the mixer, but still have to turn the volume up to about -40 dB on my stereo instead of -65 dB from other inputs (like FM, CD, MD etc., of which the latter two actually are connected by TOSLink cable to the stereo, too). So either the A/D converter on the card gets a low input signal, or it scales it down to this pretty low level, or the drivers are doing that. Don't know which. I will be e-mailing Creative's technical support about this. But the sound quality is _very_ good, and I'm very happy with this little investment. All in all it cost me US$36 + DM75,- = approximately US$72. I hope this gives some insight to others that want to do the same thing. Best regards, Björn -- Björn Wiberg ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Homepage: http://bwiberg.cjb.net/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
