Long range music server
Reply #6 – 2010-01-28 23:22:00
S/PDIF stands for Sony/Phillips Digital InterFace. If you plug an SPDIF signal to a standard audio input in a receiver you'll get noise. SPDIF can send AC3, DTS or PCM audio in digital form, to be decoded by the receiver. I believe it can carry up to 4 channels of PCM audio (a standard WAV file).Now let say using s/pdif, I still must decode the signal before passing it to the amps, is there any way, while still using only one computer, and perhaps avoiding the usb/multi-hubs solution, to route the digital signal to those, in the end, unavoidable external dacs? Yes, but it depends on what you want. If you want to have all 3 amps to get the same signal at the same time, then you'll need either 1 audio card with al least 3 SPDIF outputs and the possibility to control which output is being used (1, 2 or all 3) or 3 separate cheap audio cards with single SPDIF outputs, and software (player) to handle the sending of several signals thru several audio cards/outputs (most don't). If you want to use 1 amp at any time, then you'll need the same card/s as above and any player that supports SPDIF output thru selection of a specific audio device (most do). I've tested with the SPDIF output of my soundcard connected to the SPDIF input of a Sony amp with a RCA-to.-3.5-jack plug connected to a 10-meters decent quality RCA cable (built by myself) connected to another 1.5m RCA cable and the signal was decoded flawlessly, either AC3, DTS or PCM. Considering all the unnecessary connections you would expect some loss of quality, yet there was none.