Connecting to AV receiver

[Lord Mirdalan]

Greetings,

 

I'm attempting to connect a Yamaha RX-V385 receiver to my PC to drive a  5.1 system.

https://usa.yamaha.com/products/audio_visual/av_receivers_amps/rx-v385_u/specs.html#product-tabs

 

My audio outputs are: SPDIF and 3.5mm audio (via Asus X99-E WS/USB3.1) and Displayport 1.4 (Quadro P4000). The receiver expects HDMI, SPDIF or coaxial inputs. I assume 3.5mm audio will do me no good...

 

Which output would allow me to have 5.1? Do I need a dedicated soundcard?

 

Thanks.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just use spdif.

[circeseye]

fyi thou you will only use the basic dolby and dts audio... Dolby® TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio Dolby Digital Plus and such are not supported over spdif...you need hdmi for that

 

if you want the better stuff you can use a displayport to hdmi adapter

like this

[Lord Mirdalan]

Thanks! Is the "better stuff" worth $30?

[circeseye]

2 hours ago, Lord Mirdalan said:

Thanks! Is the "better stuff" worth $30?

depends...to me it was....better channel separation... improved sound, and less compression (spdif is compressed) 

[Kalm_Traveler]

HDMI will carry whatever the source is, including 5.1 and up. 

 

Many onboard audio chipsets support encoding 5.1 over spdif with Dolby Digital Live and / or DTS Connect / DTS Interactive but Windows update drivers seem to remove that functionality. 

 

I tried various drivers for 8 hours yesterday on my Asus Rampage VI Extreme (have tried other boards in the past too) but the best I got was the receiver seeing the 5.1 signal. 

 

Nothing would come out of any speakers other than FL and FR. 

 

So i gave up and reinstalled the Sound Blaster Z sound card, since it actually works properly with both DDL and DTS Connect. Between those two i prefer DTS because it has triple the bandwidth compared to DDL which I believe means less compression used. Also with Creatives control panel you can set a surround effect to make stereo sources play from the SL and SR channels as well as the fronts for a more full sound. 

[circeseye]

4 hours ago, Kalm_Traveler1 said:

HDMI will carry whatever the source is, including 5.1 and up. 

 

Many onboard audio chipsets support encoding 5.1 over spdif with Dolby Digital Live and / or DTS Connect / DTS Interactive but Windows update drivers seem to remove that functionality. 

 

I tried various drivers for 8 hours yesterday on my Asus Rampage VI Extreme (have tried other boards in the past too) but the best I got was the receiver seeing the 5.1 signal. 

 

Nothing would come out of any speakers other than FL and FR. 

 

So i gave up and reinstalled the Sound Blaster Z sound card, since it actually works properly with both DDL and DTS Connect. Between those two i prefer DTS because it has triple the bandwidth compared to DDL which I believe means less compression used. Also with Creatives control panel you can set a surround effect to make stereo sources play from the SL and SR channels as well as the fronts for a more full sound. 

looking at your board ......realtek 1150 is basically the same as suppreme fx on the asus, all the supreme fx is is a modified realtek 1150 codec with some fancy software. SupremeFX controllers from Asus, whatever generation, is nothing more than a 1st tier Realtek sound controller with modded driver, which brings more features than quality. Basically a better software package, not audio quality improvement.
that might be be why you have issues ...

[Kalm_Traveler]

3 hours ago, circeseye said:

looking at your board ......realtek 1150 is basically the same as suppreme fx on the asus, all the supreme fx is is a modified realtek 1150 codec with some fancy software. SupremeFX controllers from Asus, whatever generation, is nothing more than a 1st tier Realtek sound controller with modded driver, which brings more features than quality. Basically a better software package, not audio quality improvement.
that might be be why you have issues ...

Yeah the chip is a Realtek ALC1220 on this particular model. However the issues weren't with the quality of the sound, rather that the "features" just don't work. 

 

With the latest drivers from Asus or Microsoft there isn't even an option in the Realtek control panel to use DDL or DTS C. 

 

I found an older driver for a Z270 Asus board and that added both, and from testing it was switching between DDL and DTS Interactive per the AVR but even Windows test tones would only come out of the front left and front right speakers. 

 

After that i tried a shady signed driver that is supposed to unlock all features, but it wasn't any different functionally, only added an EQ tab in the realtek program. 

 

As much as people hate on Creative Labs lately for being irrelevant and in the old days for terrible drivers, i have to say that in a very niche situation like mine this sound card is the only thing I've found that actually works as advertised.