The only other thing I can think of is to fool around in your volume control menu. Make sure nothing is muted or turned down. Usually this only applies to analog output but maybe it's different between sound cards. When I go into my volume control I have all the separate channels listed, and some various master controls, I think there's even one for SPDIF specifically.

I know that someones when outputting analog 5.1, if I turn on WinDVD, something gets screwy and I have to close all my programs down and flick mute on and off on a few of the controls before my sound is working properly again. Not sure what causes it but usually for whatever reason my center sound either drops out completely or becomes very low volume wise.

I've never had any problems on my optical port, except the odd time I will get a screaching noise that can be remedied by move the movie ahead a chapter and then back.

Also, within PowerDVD if you go to show information you should check to be sure that DD 5.1 is being spit out. Sometimes the 5.1 track isn't the default audio track played.

It sounds like a driver problem though to me because if you can't get into a specific Creative menu for your card then you can't be sure what your card is trying to do. For SPDIF on my motherboard the driver software has options like speaker setup, SPDIF passthrough, no output, output digital only. And different khz settings. I think the receiver can only understand 48 and 44.1, if it's set to 96 khz I get no sound.

One other thing I was thinking about was that with my onboard 5.1 sound, the outputs can be configured anyway you want. So perhaps when you initially setup your sound card with the Y cable rather then the mono cable it setup that particular jack for FR/FL instead of Digital output. With my drivers it's easy to tell because there is a audio wizard that shows pictures of each of the colored jacks and what they are being used for.

Just a guess though.

I am happy to say that I finally have true DD 5.1/DTS 5.1 audio out of my Audigy to my receiver.

The Creative Labs team told me of a software to access that portion of my card, it is the Creative Audio Console found under the Start-Programs-Creative-SB Audigy 2-Creative Audio Console. This is the program that allowed me to set discrete SPDIF out and set the frequency to 48Khz. I tried 96Khz but nothing worked.. I guess that's only for DVD-AUDIO?
There is NOWHERE else that you can make this change to the card that I found.. not even through Device Manager/Volume Control-Advanced Mixer.

Either way, I popped in Fantastic 4, picked the DTS track and fired her up.. after all the ads came up and went, the movie started and presto.. red DTS light was on my receiver.. I was overjoyed.. and I heard the true discrete DTS signal coming out of ALL speakers connected to my receiver. I was very happy to see this. I couldn't believe that it was a simple setting like this... somehow I knew if I found the SPDIF setting for the card it would work.

So that's my resolution to the problem. True DD/DTS WILL work from the SB Audigy series cards out to the receiver with one mono miniplug to coaxial on receiver.

I want to thank you all for your cooperation and assistance.

Filper, have you managed to get yours to work again?

Filper, have you managed to get yours to work again?

Thanks for the interest... no not yet. My box is in a million pieces right now. I am switching cases and now I find the an ATX2 24 pin power supply socket won't fit in a 20 pin ATX board.... :), so It might be a bit until I can get an adapter and fire the beast back up.

Well good luck with that man. Let us know how it works out.

The SB Audigy and M-Audio Revolution only support DD pass through from a software or hardware DVD player. They will not generate DD 5.1 using their own drivers even if the media file contains the correct stream. This has the obvious disadvantage of losing DD 5.1 on recorded programs that are not playable with a DVD player. Does anyone know of an audio card that will generate and output DD 5.1 with other software? I am interested in VLC in particular. This program supports DD 5.1 but AFAIK neither M-Audio cards or SB Audigy will output DD 5.1 with it.

Not sure what you're asking here. Either the card passes through DD via the SPDIF port, or software like PowerDVD can be used to decode in on the computer and send the 5.1 through the analog ports on the sound card to the speaker inputs on the receiver (if your receiver supports this). Usually this involves three Y cables to the associated speaker port on the back of the receiver.

My ABIT motherboard support SPDIF via optical, and 7.1 via analog ports. I have both hooked up just in case I want to play a game or WMVHD file with 5.1.

If a sound card has analog 5.1 or higher support, then as long as you have the 5.1 codec on your computer you can output it via these ports to your home receiver.

I just wanted to say thank you for excellent thread here. I've been having the EXACT same problem trying to get surround sound working on my Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS & Pioneer VSX-1015tx receiver. My mistake? Hopefully, it was the fact that I was using stereo headphones extension cable instead of mono. I'm heading over to Radioshack right now to try switching over to a mono cable and will report any success

issue #2
Has anyone figured out a way to reverse the "front" and "rear" settings with this setup? My computer is on the opposite wall of the tv, so for surround sound on the computer I'd like to reverse what is front and rear when I'm gaming. Anyone have any ideas? With analog signal it would be easy to swap wires, but since I'm trying to use the digital I imagine I need to find a setting either on the computer, game (unreal 2004), or Receiver.

Thanks!

issue #2
Has anyone figured out a way to reverse the "front" and "rear" settings with this setup? My computer is on the opposite wall of the tv, so for surround sound on the computer I'd like to reverse what is front and rear when I'm gaming. Anyone have any ideas? With analog signal it would be easy to swap wires, but since I'm trying to use the digital I imagine I need to find a setting either on the computer, game (unreal 2004), or Receiver.

I don't think you can do this. You may find some settings in your sound cards control panel to do it, but I think it would only affect the analog outs. The digital out is just a passthrough, so your only chance is in the game settings or your receiver settings and I strongly doubt either is capable of the swap (since it's not a common need).

If I were you, I would connect your pc to your receiver twice. Hook up the analogs with your speakers reversed (remember to swap l/r as well) to the ext.in inputs on your receiver for pc/gaming use, and then hook up the digital connection for HTPC use.