[fonmastersync]

I'm going to use a Mixamp for my optical sources. It only has one optical input however. I'm thinking about using an optical switch to pass the optical signal through. The Mixamp requires ddl for dolby headphones to work correctly on the computer. I don't have a soundcard with dolby digital live yet, but if I do plan on getting one. Will ddl be able to go through the switch to the Mixamp successfully?

On a similar note, if I use an amplifier with the sound card, will the amplifier recognize ddl or dolby headphones and send surround sound to my headphones? Or do I need something similar to the Mixamp?

 

[obobskivich]

Dolby Digital and Dolby Headphone decoding is a required to support those features; it isn't a latent feature in all DtoAs (it requires licencing and additional hardware).

You can either get a soundcard that does all of this internally and sends out a processed stereo signal (via PCM or analog), or send out a Dolby Digital signal from DDL or an AC-3 bitstream (like from a DVD) and let an outboard decoder apply Dolby Headphone. Most cards that can do DDL can also do Dolby Headphone, so unless you're married to a specific amplifier or decoder (for example if you're using an expensive AV processor), I'd probably just let the soundcard do all of the processing and send the signal out to an amplifier or DAC and amplifier.

There should be no issues with an optical switch with any of the supported formats that optical can carry.