SPDIF out vs other connectors

[Gifton Sundar]

I want to buy a new speaker or soundbar for my upcoming pc and I ran into a problem of what input is best for the speaker from the mobo. I thought of buying the MSI B450M Mortar which has SPDIF optical out and the soundbar was Mi Soundbar which has SPDIF coaxial input. First I saw only the SPDIF and was about to buy the soundbar, but after that found that the SPDIF arrow went to coaxial and optical one is something else which is used to connect older TVs.

 

 

In the mobo, I don't even know what the other 5 audio connectors do, coz I used to have only the old '3 color' connectors for which green goes for speakers/headphones.

 

Can you guys explain What those 5 connectors do(specially the red one)?

and, Is it best to use the Optical SPDIF OUT or the other connectors?

 

As I don't have enough space or money to mount a 5.1 setup for those connectors(if they are meant for that), I thought of going for a soundbar / 2.1 setup.

So, Is a 2.1 setup better or a soundbar?

[HanZie82]

If you play games dont!
Almost no game supports it, and almost no motherboard manufacterer gives you the dolby live you need to get 5.1 sound from a game.
I bet someone with more knowledge about it will explain in detail.

But if you game, go analogue.

[Ben17]

23 minutes ago, Gifton Sundar said:

Is a 2.1 setup better or a soundbar?

The fibre optic cable is for the spdif from the board I think I don't know what is best though.

[Ben17]

22 minutes ago, Gifton Sundar said:

So, Is a 2.1 setup better or a soundbar?

The optical port on the sounderbar is for SPDIF from the motherboard The RS port is for a right speaker.

The CS port is for a centre speaker.

The mic port is for a microphone.

The red port is for using more standard stereo speaker sets.

and the L IN port is for sending a amplified input into the PC(from another device)

[HanZie82]

19 minutes ago, Gifton Sundar said:

In the mobo, I don't even know what the other 5 audio connectors do, coz I used to have only the old '3 color' connectors for which green goes for speakers/headphones.

 

Can you guys explain What those 5 connectors do(specially the red one)?

and, Is it best to use the Optical SPDIF OUT or the other connectors?

 

As I don't have enough space or money to mount a 5.1 setup for those connectors(if they are meant for that), I thought of going for a soundbar / 2.1 setup.

So, Is a 2.1 setup better or a soundbar?

Im sorry i didnt read correctly in my 1st comment.

RS-out - Rear speaker out
CS-out - Centre speaker out (usualy combined with sub out, one plug)

Mic - for microphones

L-out - line out front stereo speakers (the one you need for analogue 2.0 or 2.1 setups)

L-in - Line in (can use that to connect other media devices to the PC like a CD-player or even a phone)

But looking at the design im guessing its a newer motherboard thus all those connections can be assigned as you like probably.
And if you go for a soundbar i would connect the SPDIF since that can carry multi channel audio and probably use it. (since a single 3,5mm jack only carries a analogue stereo signal.

 

 

edit- PS for what you want a 2.1 or soundbar is kinda personal preference. Do you want 3 speakers to place or 1 and a subwoofer. If you get a good one it doesnt really matter. Altho you have more options with 2.1 since you can place the speakers where you want.

[Ben17]

2 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

Im sorry i didnt read correctly in my 1st comment.

RS-out - Rear speaker out
CS-out - Centre speaker out (usualy combined with sub out, one plug)

Mic - for microphones

L-out - line out front stereo speakers (the one you need for analogue 2.0 or 2.1 setups)

L-in - Line in (can use that to connect other media devices to the PC like a CD-player or even a phone)

But looking at the design im guessing its a newer motherboard thus all those connections can be assigned as you like probably.
And if you go for a soundbar i would connect the SPDIF since that can carry multi channel audio and probably use it. (since a single 3,5mm jack only carries a analogue stereo signal.

Defn. true except u usually cant reassign  the ports

[vanished]

32 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

If you play games dont!
Almost no game supports it, and almost no motherboard manufacterer gives you the dolby live you need to get 5.1 sound from a game.
I bet someone with more knowledge about it will explain in detail.

But if you game, go analogue.

I don't understand the chain of logic here.  Games don't often support surround so go analogue?  Those have nothing to do with each other.  You can have surround, stereo, or mono, and everything in between with both digital and analogue connections.

[Ben17]

2 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I don't understand

The  analogue bit is his own opinion on what gives the best quality.  

[Gifton Sundar]

Thanks guys for the replies! So, what those 5 connectors do is solved.

I was planning to buy the soundbar as it's the best value for money here in India. The speakers from reputed manufactures are costly here and if they are cheap they have very less features and poor sound quality.

So, for connecting the soundbar with the mobo the optical is better, but I saw reviews of the soundbar where they tell that the optical is used for older televisions. Then isn't that bad?

And S/PDIF is not there for the soundbar optical port, it's for the the coaxial port which I can't use for my pc(assuming that the other end is also coaxial).

 

So is the S/PDIF optical out of the mobo same as the optical port of the soundbar?

Or, even though it's non S/PDIF supports the S/PDIF of the mobo without losing quality?

[Ben17]

1 minute ago, Gifton Sundar said:

Thanks guys for the replies

yes it is as far as i know

[vanished]

53 minutes ago, Gifton Sundar said:

[...] optical one is something else which is used to connect older TVs.

Not really, it's still a current connector used in/on all sorts of places and devices.

53 minutes ago, Gifton Sundar said:

Spoiler

 

In the mobo, I don't even know what the other 5 audio connectors do, coz I used to have only the old '3 color' connectors for which green goes for speakers/headphones.

 

Can you guys explain What those 5 connectors do(specially the red one)?

In the motherboard pic:

• SPDIF is the optical output, as you know.
• RS-Out and CS-Out would be for rear left + right "surround", and centre + sub most likely, to make up a 5.1 setup.  If so, these are TRS analog line-level outputs.
• L-Out is your Line out, and would be green on other motherboards.  This is your normal line level TRS analog stereo output if you were running a stereo setup, or front channel left and right if you are doing surround.
• L-In would be your Line in for recording line level sources, and Mic would be for recording mic-level (quieter) sources (it is passed through an internal preamp).  Both of these would be TRS analog stereo inputs.

In the second pic (I assume this is what you're sending the sound to?), from left to right:

• DC power jack
• SPDIF optical - this could receive an input from the optical connection on your motherboard.
• SPDIF RCA - I've never used this personally but it's a digital connection over a traditional RCA cable afaik
• The two to the right (white and red) are left and right RCA line in respectively.  These could connect to the L-Out port on your motherboard with the right adapter for analog stereo.
• 3.5 mm jack - this can go right to the L-Out on your motherboard for analog stereo.

53 minutes ago, Gifton Sundar said:

and, Is it best to use the Optical SPDIF OUT or the other connectors?

You may as well use it since digital is nice and all that but if you have issues, try the 3.5 mm jack

53 minutes ago, Gifton Sundar said:

As I don't have enough space or money to mount a 5.1 setup for those connectors(if they are meant for that), I thought of going for a soundbar / 2.1 setup.

So, Is a 2.1 setup better or a soundbar?

soundbars are not great, I'd get proper speakers given the option, it will sound better, assuming you don't get poor ones.

[Derkoli]

25 minutes ago, Ben17 said:

The  analogue bit is his own opinion on what gives the best quality.  

Either way what comes out of the amp/amps is analogue. all audio we perceive is analogue. although spdif sounds different to pure analogue.

[HanZie82]

18 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I don't understand the chain of logic here.  Games don't often support surround so go analogue?  Those have nothing to do with each other.  You can have surround, stereo, or mono, and everything in between with both digital and analogue connections.

No this is more about the fact that Dolby live isn't sold together with soundcards anymore. So only stereo will be passed over SPDIF.
Its a thing. That you don't know about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Gaming via SPDIF and getting 5.1 is almost unobtainable.
Because it needs to compress the surround streams and those use proprietary codecs. Which most games don't support and almost any soundcard comes without.
Since Dolby and its DTS counterpart want moneys for their codecs.

So yeah next time you want to say its not true, do your research first.

18 hours ago, Ben17 said:

The  analogue bit is his own opinion on what gives the best quality.  

Its not an opinion else i wouldve stated as such.

 

 

 

(That i cant explain it properly doesnt mean im wrong. hehehe)

[vanished]

5 hours ago, HanZie82 said:

(That i cant explain it properly doesnt mean im wrong. hehehe)

No, but it does mean you'll have a lot of trouble getting people to understand what you're saying and should probably refrain from putting words in their mouth, "correcting" their accurate assertions, and telling them to "do some research" until you've got that worked out.  It comes across as very arrogant which is never good, but particularly so when you're unable to explain yourself properly.

 

In your original post, you unambiguously stated that dolby support is needed to get surround sound from a game, full stop.  Then, without giving any reasoning for the decision, you make the recommendation to use an analog connection.  I pointed out that there is no inherent correlation between digital/analog and surround/stereo.  This can be taken either as a general statement "in a vacuum", or as a correction to your statement above, since your statement was false.  As you stated in your reply above, you only need the Dolby (or other) codecs to compress the signal when using an optical connection.  HDMI for example can carry an uncompressed digital surround sound signal without the need for any special codecs.  Regardless, what I said is correct.  With that out of the way, all I wanted to know was how you got from that first statement to "go analogue" because I see no clear set of logical decisions that lead from one to the other.