[perdomot]

Despite the fact that the digital connection only gave me 2 channels when hooked up to my home stereo, I was planning on keeping this card until I tried to record something through the Line In port. I kept getting a high pitched sound in the background that made converting some audio cassettes impossible. I switched back to the TBSC and the sound disappeared and my digital connection through the VersaJack had the music pumping out of all 5 of my speakers. On the plus side, I discovered Foobar and will be using that as my media player of choice. Not a total loss.

 

[Snoodge]

sounds like you didnt take the time to read the setup guides and get it working correctly. The AV-710 has a great digital output that can pass any time of multi-channel sound PLUS it'll output 24/96 digital @ its optical out. all that for $25... sounds like you didnt give it a chance.

 

[perdomot]

Actually, I followed the guides pretty closely. My problems were:

1. Digital output to my home receiver only came out of the main two speakers. Center channel and 2 rear speakers where quiet and from replies to my question, this is normal.

2. Noticed that a couple of times, sound suddenly stopped working completely and I had to log out and in or restart to get it working. This is not the bug that causes problems with Windows sound schemes.

3. There was a high whine that could be heard when importing music via the Line In plug. Nothing I did made it stop.

I pulled the card and installed my TBSC and tested the Line In and there was no whine like the AV-710. The TBSC also has a digital out that works fine and the music comes out of all 5 of my speakers, as opposed to 2 with the 710. If I didn't need a good line in connection, I probably would have stayed with the 710, but I import a lot of stuff through the Line In so unless you know what is causing this problem, I think I'll be sticking with the TBSC.

 

[Publius]

The 710 has a bad rep for recording. The general consensus here is that an EMU or an RME or even an M-Audio are much better choices.

 

[perdomot]

The bad rep for recording is well earned, I assure you. How hard can it be to make a clean sounding Line In for a card?

 

[PinchyCM]

Quote:

Originally Posted by perdomot The bad rep for recording is well earned, I assure you. How hard can it be to make a clean sounding Line In for a card?

that's a shame. you should take a look at an emu0404, they're only about 99 dollars.

come to think of it, i wouldn't mind having an av710 (my a2zs's line outs are all taken up) right now. if you decide to go with another card, i'll take it off your hands or somethin'. hell, i should just buy one retail, they're like 25 bucks shipped.

 

[Snoodge]

Quote:

I pulled the card and installed my TBSC and tested the Line In and there was no whine like the AV-710. The TBSC also has a digital out that works fine and the music comes out of all 5 of my speakers, as opposed to 2 with the 710.

what are you talking about here... The sound doesnt come out of all 5 of your speakers? well in what manner... The only way your going to get sound coming out of all five of your speakers is if your passing a DD/DTS surround stream to your receiver, or if your passing a two channel pcm signal to the receiver and using a DSP mode like 5 channel stereo. Either way there should be absolutely no difference in sound distribution so long as your passing one of those two types of signal. If your doing something crazy like running 5.1 analog outs from the av-710 into your receivers pre-amp inputs then i'd chalk that up to you setting it up wrong...

The issue of the recording sucking is something everyone knows about, but other than that, i think you not being able to get sound to all 5 of your speakers is your own lack of undestanding regarding setup.

 

[perdomot]

When I had the TBSC connected to my Yamaha HTR-5540's co-axial digital connection, I had the sound coming out of all 5 of my speakers. The 710 has an optical connection that when I hooked up to the receiver, only had the L/R activated with the same settings as before(5 Channel Stereo). I didn't mind this so much since I could plug in my headphones to the receiver and enjoy the music that way. It was the terrible Line In performance that killed it for me. I did not know this card had a problem with Line In or I wouldn't have bought it since this is something I really need. When I posted about this L/R problem, I was told that 2 channels is it when the digital output is used and apparently the DSP can't split the signal to all 5 speakers as is can with the TBSC. I tried installing the TBSC with the 710 but they don't play nice together so I removed the 710 and reinstalled the TBSC. As I said, I could live with the 2 channel problem, but not the crappy Line In issue. Have a nice day.

 

[Snoodge]

so what your saying is, the TBSC offers a 5 channel stereo DSP algorithm that is applied to the signal BEFORE its sent out of the cards coax digital output? If im reading this correctly the card would most likely also have to encode the 5 channel stereo signal into AC3 5.1 otherwise how is your Yamaha receiver knowing what channels to play where just from the digital stream coming from your TBSC.

sorry mate, im just not following you at all. The only time you should get sound from your receiver in all channels when using a computer as source is when your passing a Dolby Digital or DTS surround stream to it, or if your passing a regular PCM stereo track to the receiver and THEN applying a DSP program like "5 Channel Stereo" to it inside the receiver.

It makes no sense that there would be 5 Channel stereo available when using the TBSC and not with the AV-710.

 

[perdomot]

Snoodge,
The DSP on my receiver is set for 5 channel stereo and when I hooked up the TBSC to it via the digital output, sound came out of all 5 speakers. When I hooked up the 710, only two speakers outputed the sound. Why that is, I have no idea but that is what happened. I would think the results would be the same but they weren't. I checked the settings and they were the same for both cards so that was not the issue. As I said previously, this was not THE BIG issue for me as the audio sounded great through my headphones. It was the crappy Line In performance that killed it for me.