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Creative X-Fi Elite Pro Breakout Box SPDIF/Optical OUT to Denon 1909 Receiver Optical IN not working ?

Hello,

Today I bought an SPDIF-optical/TOS link cable to experiment with soundblaster to receiver audio processing options.

The idea is to use creative labs audio processing from x-fi in combination with denon receiver audio processing to see what the ultimate effect/output/sound would be like.

However I am having difficulties getting it working.

It seems the SPDIF out is MUTED ?!?

When I run the test software as follows:

  1. Launch creative console

  1. Launch THX setup via it or directly via pop-up menu

Below it is an icon that looks like a speaker with a plus above it.

This is "creative diagnostics"

During "mixer settings check" it displays:

Master MUTE Wave checked Midi checked Soundbank checked

(It also does some driver analysis).

So the results of this check is weird.

For normal/analog output the master is not muted and everything is fine.

When switching to SPDIF/out via volume control panel of windows the master seems to be MUTED ?!?!

Why is this ?

I have never used SPDIF/optical/tos link before so I am not sure what is normally supposed to happen.

Is it suppose to detect signals automatically and if not it auto-mutes ?

I tried all kinds of input modes on the receiver, but nothing seems to work.

The toslink cable is 5 meters. Perhaps it's too long ?

I did see a faint red light shine through it... perhaps the cable is of bad quality.

I will take it to a store later on to test it out in that store if they can to see if it will work or not :) Hopefully they can help with testing... not sure if they can though.

I think it's probably not the cable.

Especially since the software displays "MUTED".

In volume control panel it does not appear muted... I tried reverse it by muting it... that also does not work...

The master volume stays muted in windows according to this test.

What I could try is re-install all drives but I'd rather not do that.

I also tried experimenting with creative alchemy to see if that will allow directx directsound processing in world of warships to be done by the creative labs audio processors in the hopes that the game can run ultra sound mode on my system.

First test was low performance cause svchost.exe was consuming 50% cpu after reboot cause of alchemy installation so later will try again to see if world of warships can benefit from alchemy software... I already added it manually to it.

For now I would like to get SPDIF/optical working cause I am curious what kind of audio processing options might be available on the receiver if it uses optical in.

I also installed zoom player... but so far no luck.. perhaps additional audio codecs are needed... though I believe theoretically spdif/tos link should also be able to simply play stereo sound via pcm/direct or so ?

windows 7 has dts audio and dolby digital available for spdif out.

Though I believe the denon receiver is capable of processing many different formats.

If the basic audio test of windows 7 is not working then I don't think install extra software is going to help much.... zoom player for example... probably not gonna help much... though I will continue experimenting a little bit with it.

Perhaps installing something special so that more audio codecs become available might help ?!

But for now it seems to be some kind of weird MUTE problem ?!

Ofcourse maybe the breakout box is defective... the led light failed for main volume or something... but everything else seems to work.

Perhaps SPDIF out was disabled in driver to fix some weird driver problem by creative or so ?!

So any ideas why the master volume seems to be muted according to this test ?!?

I could try a different operating system...

Perhaps Linux Mint, though I kinda nuked my dvd drive a little bit...

Laptop does not have spdif out so testing with that is unfortunately not possible.

Running a different operating system seems an interesting idea for this particular test... not sure if linux/mint supports spdif optical and such.

This OS test might shine some more light on if it's a hardware or software problem. If linux mint does work via SPDIF/TOS then it's some kind of windows software problem.

Bye for now, Skybuck.

Reply to
skybuck2000
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Creative Labs has some documentation online about what I and some call the "breakout box". It is also known as "I/O Console"

Page 20 and 21 of this PDF document:

https://documentation.help/Creative-X-FI-TSD-9846-0xC839EF1F/documentation.pdf

Page 21 shows the rear of the device.

Page 22 mentions optical in/out and such.

I assume I have to use Optical OUT and connect it to the denon receiver TV/CBL optical IN.

I also tried Optical IN on this console I/O so far no luck...

Hmmm,

Bye, Skybuck.

Reply to
skybuck2000

I am now re-installing the creative labs software.

First I tried to uninstall as much as possible of creative labs software, had to uninstall twice.

creative labs soundblaster x-fi

stuff removed via uninstall programs.

I even de-installed the driver via admin panel/computer management/device management and so forth.

I did do a rescan of hardware changes and then windows re-installs a basic driver.

After restart of operating system I did notice a decoder panel that wasn't there with the full software which is kinda odd.

Perhaps this is something new... it had dobly and dts settings.

Anyway now during the re-installation of original DVD/ISO I come across this text:

" 1.2 Muting Digital SPDIF Output When Playing DVD-Audio Media

Sound Blaster X-Fi uses Content Protection for Pre-recorded Media (CPPM) that has been developed by 4C(r) comprising IBM(r), Intel(r), MEI(r) and Toshiba(r). Part of the copy protection feature requires that all SPDIF output of Sound Blaster X-Fi products be muted during DVD-Audio media playback. You can still listen to the DVD-Audio media content through analog speakers. "

This mentions muting of SPDIF out which seems what I am experiencing.

Perhaps the software detect HDP (high definition content/protection) on receiver and forces the SPDIF out to be muted ?!?!?

This would be very strange.

Bye for now, Skybuck.

Reply to
skybuck2000

It's only for Sony's SACD and DVD-Audio discs both of which are essentially dead formats (gosh I wonder why!)

You may have a sample-rate mismatch, under menu 5-2 "Audio Signal Information" it should tell you the sample rate and format the Denon is receiving, you might be trying to send it 48kHz stereo audio out of the X-fi while the Denon may only support playback of 44.1kHz stereo audio over SPDIF optical.

Reply to
bitrex

Some "pro" audio cards assume you want to send 48kHz ADAT-compatible digital audio over a lightpipe connection not 44.1kHz

Reply to
bitrex

As bizarre as it sounds there can be a problem with long toslink cables and some otherwise high quality kit. Some in my experience will only work on cables shorter than 1m. The problem appears to be that the optical drive is not up to the actual specification and attenuation losses in the longer cables prevents them working. It is that marginal.

My brother in laws system has this quirk on one of the Musos. Unclear how much is mechanical (sloppy fit) injection loss and how much electrical - not surprisingly he won't let me take it apart to see.

The output that doesn't work as an input is measurably fainter.

There are various related gripes on the Muso section of Naims site.

formatting link

Try it with a 50cm lead - preferably one that fits well at both ends.

Why is there such a variation in fit on these things?

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

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