[techen]

Heya fokes, I have a few questions.
 
So, After 3 hours of trying to get my sony unit to work with my computer it all came down to having a lack of a 5.1 Optical cable. I thought they were all the same, But comparing the thickness of my optical cables I saw my issue.
 
So I have a BDV-E4100 Sony unit, 5.1 and 1000watt all wired into my Soundblaster soundcard via optical.
 
5.1 works amazingly, It's the best sound I've heard in a long time.
 
So to my few questions:
 
What is the purpose of putting the sub into a conner of my room? Does this improve the sound in the room rather than having it under my desk?
 
I know this unit can produce 1000watts but what does that really mean? Does it mean that the sound "Sounds" better or that it can take higher volume limits without sounding awful.
 
Lastly, A few things via the sound blaster control panel I can't control, Is this due to the blu ray unit having most of the control? Or could I be missing some settings.
 
Thanks in advanced.

 

[MindsMirror]

There is no such thing as a 5.1 optical cable, they are all the same. I doubt changing the cable would have make it work, you probably also changed a setting.
 
I think putting the sub in the corner is meant to make it louder throughout the room. It is to do with room acoustics.
 
Power is related to how loud the amp can drive the speakers. Some speakers require or can take more power than others. Having extra power won't make anything sound better. Not having enough power would mean that you either could not set the volume as high as you want it, or that the amplifier would not perform to spec at that level and could distort the signal. 1000W is the total amount of power it is rated for on all of the speaker outputs combined.
 
Using the S/PDIF output of the sound card will bypass its DAC. The Sound Core3D chip that contains the DAC for the 5.1 channel outputs is also the chip which does the DSP, so maybe bypassing the DAC also bypass those options. I don't use S/PDIF output on mine so I'm not sure.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  So, After 3 hours of trying to get my Sony unit to work with my computer it all came down to having a lack of a 5.1 Optical cable. I thought they were all the same, But comparing the thickness of my optical cables I saw my issue.
So I have a BDV-E4100 Sony unit, 5.1 and 1000watt all wired into my Sound blaster sound card via optical.
5.1 works amazingly, It's the best sound I've heard in a long time.
So to my few questions:
What is the purpose of putting the sub into a corner of my room? Does this improve the sound in the room rather than having it under my desk?
I know this unit can produce 1000watts but what does that really mean? Does it mean that the sound "Sounds" better or that it can take higher volume limits without sounding awful.
Lastly, A few things via the sound blaster control panel I can't control, Is this due to the Blu-ray unit having most of the control? Or could I be missing some settings.

 
I really doubt the thickness of the optical cable will effect your audio setup.
A quality (much higher priced) 500 watt system will (can) sound better then a cheaper 1000 watt system.
So the "1000 Watt" label on your Sony is are more for marketing hype, then to do with real sound quality.
 
Normally S/PDIF optical cable will carry 2 channel of PCM (un-compressed) digital audio.
Your Creative card comes with DDL (Dolby Digital Live), which can compress (24-bit/48K max) up to 6-channels of digital audio, allowing it to pass thru the optical cable to the Sony, where the Sony uses it's own Dolby to un-compress the 6-channels back to PCM.
I'm guessing with DDL enabled, some of the features on the Creative card are not needed and there for disabled (guessing).
The Sony Blu-ray player has zero control over what the Creative card is doing.
The optical cable only transmit one way, from the Creative to the Sony, not the Sony to the Creative, so the Sony Blu-ray could not do any controlling of the Creative card even if it wanted to.

 

[techen]

Thanks for the replies.
 
How come there's two optical cables then.
 
Back ages ago, I went into maplins and bought the cheapest optical cable they had. It worked fine for my 2.1 speakers, No issue. However, Trying it on my sony 5.1 I only get 2.1 sound passing through it, With the new cable that says on the back of the box "Supports 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound" it works, No issues there at all. Full 5.1 sound.
 
I guess am not that fussed about having lack of control on my Soundblaster CP, It seems the EQ works 100% so I can at least turn the insane bass down before I break things.
 
I also may try moving the sub then and see what 's like.
 
Thanks anyway

 

[PurpleAngel]

  How come there's two optical cables then.
Back ages ago, I went into maplins and bought the cheapest optical cable they had. It worked fine for my 2.1 speakers, No issue. However, Trying it on my sony 5.1 I only get 2.1 sound passing through it, With the new cable that says on the back of the box "Supports 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound" it works, No issues there at all. Full 5.1 sound.
I guess am not that fussed about having lack of control on my Soundblaster CP, It seems the EQ works 100% so I can at least turn the insane bass down before I break things.
I also may try moving the sub then and see what 's like.
Thanks anyway

 
Why is there a thicker optical cable that costs you more, that's more more profit for the retailer and the manufacturer.
I guess I'll try to figure out why they want to sell you a cable that makes them more money.
I'm guessing the smaller optical cable you have can pass way more then it does hooked up to your setup.
I'm guessing there is some other reason the thicker cable is working better, beside the thickness of the optical cable.
But as long as your getting 5.1 some how, that's great.
Technically the optical cable did not carry 2.1. just 2.0, the .1 (sub-woofer signal) is pulled from the 2.0 to make that .1, after the 2.0 signal gets to the Sony.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

 
What is the purpose of putting the sub into a conner of my room? Does this improve the sound in the room rather than having it under my desk?

 

Very generally corners reinforce bass, but of course that isn't always good - it can vary from one room to another. A lot of serious 2ch and HT set-ups actually have issues with this as the corner boosts certain parts of the bass range, or even if it does affect a wider range the sound still bounces around a lot and you get to hear the same note several times, microseconds apart. The overall effect is boomy, loose bass that lacks definition and punch. In a way, think of how an F117, B2, SeaShadow, and USS Independence all minimize 90degree angles to reduce radar signature, and your room corner is the exact opposite of that with sound waves.

 

If you looked through speaker set-ups you might see some people people who put tube-shaped bass traps on the corners, essentially making it rounded bulging outwards, while others built the room with the corners already rounded out inwards or at least with flat wall that reduces the angle (ie if you look at it from the top the room is now an octagon).

 

In your case, how far are you sitting from the main speakers? If you're at a computer desk and then you put the sub to a corner to one side that's 2m away from you while the speakers are barely 1m away in front of you, you might end up with more acoustic issues than keeping them under the desk. In cars the distance to the sub is around 1.2m away in the luggage compartment, and along with  the unequal distance between left adn right channels, already necessitates serious time delay features on the DSP just to make sure that the sound arrives at the listener's ears at the same time.
 
 

 
I know this unit can produce 1000watts but what does that really mean? Does it mean that the sound "Sounds" better or that it can take higher volume limits without sounding awful.

 

It doesn't mean anything. Generally an amplifier would produce more distortion and noise at higher output levels, but in this case it doesn't even give a hint as to what the total harmonic distortion is at that point, so you'd have zero clues as to how close you are to 1% THD for example. It's not much different from having a Sony shelf system in a mainstream appliances store with screaming yellow stickers going "10,000,000,000 WATTS PMPO!!!"

 

What's more, most types of amplifier distortion are not as audible in dedicated bass drivers to begin with, so as long as the driver itself isn't distorting then there's not much you would hear from the amp's own distortion. For example, 2% THD vs 0.01%THD on a subwoofer isn't at all audible even in back to back comparison as long as the power output is identical, but any subwoofer hitting its excursion limit regardless of whether it's a clean 1000w amp or a an average 100w plate amp will definitely make an audible "thwack! thwack!" sound along with the actual notes.
 
 
 

 
Lastly, A few things via the sound blaster control panel I can't control, Is this due to the blu ray unit having most of the control? Or could I be missing some settings.

 
It depends on what settings you're looking at, o what connections you use as some formats may not be compatible through SPDIF and only through HDMI1.3 or higher.