TurtleBeach Riviera!

[Tenny]

With the promise of digital 5.1 out, for $30, it was music to my ears. Since neither my SB Audigy / SB Live 5.1's digital output (S/PDIF) was working, neither was even getting a red signal out! With S/PDIF enabled.

So I woke up early this morning, and went to Fry's picked up the TB Rivera, 5.1 sound card for only $30. I was pretty stoked, figured this would work, and I wouldn't need to upgrade to a Chaintech 7.1 Digital Out card. So I got home, installed the card / software.

Went to configure S/PDIF, but I could only enable it in 2 Channel / Headphone mode? WTF Why not 5.1? What use is having a Digital out exclusivly for 5.1 Audio (on box it says this too!) if it only comes out 2 channel mode. Although it is in all speakers, but it is not percise to the point where I lower the front right, both front right & rear right go down. Only the front right should go down.

Needless to say I'm dissappointed in this sound card, it's not true 5.1. I'll be ordering the other one, and returning this card. I've heard such great things about TurtleBeach, esp the Santa Cruz, yet I've never been pleased with any of their cards.

So on I go to order the Chaintech AV710. Hopefully it's digital out & pass-thru will work better.

[seanism]

alright sir. With the digital output the only way you are going to get sound out of all 5.1 speakers if it the signal sent to the speakers/reciever is encoded and teh reciever decodes it and sends it to the corresponding speakers. If you want to have 5.1 sound with music and non encoded streams you need to use the analog hookups. What kind of speakers/reciever do you have hooked up to the sound card?

also some games/most movies with 5.1 should work with the SPDIF out but since mp3s are stereo it will only be on the front left/right. If you have a reciever you can use fake 5.1 which might sound a bit echoey.

[Tenny]

Yeah, I got a email back from turtle beach explaining it to me.


The 2 speaker headphone option is for monitoring through the analog
outputs of the sound card. The Riviera will only send S/PDIF once the
analog speakers are set to 2 or headphones.

Audio that is not Dolby Digital/DTS or a surround sound game will only
be 2 Channel Stereo, unless you enable Virtual 5.1 in the "Sound
Effects" tab of the Riviera Control Panel.

Please be aware, the S/PDIF out only sends PCM data not audio. It is up
to your Receiver to decode the data and send it to the correct speaker
not the Sound Card. There are no Dolby Digital / DTS Decoders on the
card, so it cannot decode an incoming signal. If you have Decoding
Software from your DVD etc. installed, then the signal will go out
*decoded*. Otherwise, it will be PCM DATA.


Actully all my sounds do come out, most of the time. Although at one point last night it stopped, but once i started playing a movie, then went back to game / music, it worked.

[seanism]

haha not to shabby of an explaination on my part for figuring everything out on my own. Its practically the same as what they said.

and if you use the SPDIF output it basically skips your soundcard and its a waste to have it because your reciever does the decoding not the soundcard.

gfg

[Tenny]

Yes, not bad, I was thinking about that, but I still thought it should be able to do change the volume of the speakers, but I have S/PDIF sepcified in my PowerDVD, so it actully is true optical / digital 5.1 in the reciver, but then it goes out analog to the speakers... meh!

I'll probably keep it just becasue I'm too lazy... and the difference would be almost nothing.