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I need to transfer 5.1 digital sound from:
Laptop -> sound card -> home theater receiver (this does decoding)
I'm using the premium grade optical in/out cables to achieve this.
- Since my initial requirement is to pass 5.1 digital signals through USB to the home theater receiver, should I be concerned about the sound card's bit depth and sample rate?
- Can I use a cheap sound card which passes digital signals, or do I need a high quality, name-brand sound card?
1S/PDIF was designed for stereo data, so 5.1 audio must be compressed (with a codec like Dolby or DTS). You are unlikely to get more than 16 bits at 48 kHz, which every hardware supports. – CL. – 2015-12-14T09:02:18.887
@CL. However since the decoding happens in the end device anyway and the bit depth and the sample rate being generated at the end device (home theater receiver in my case), I don't need to be panic about the sound card right? – inckka – 2015-12-14T17:10:42.937
The end device cannot create more bits or samples than are actually contained in the (compressed) data sent to it. And these algorithms aren't specified for more. – CL. – 2015-12-14T21:38:27.523
@CL. Can I know some models that works with linux. It should be output multichannel through spdif. I've already bought a USB device(famous ebay search, external soundcard) however it only supports stero on linux. – inckka – 2016-01-08T05:07:20.647
The Dolby/DTS compression must be done in software. – CL. – 2016-01-08T08:24:36.783
@CL. But my DAC does the decoding. So do you know any sound card – inckka – 2016-01-08T09:52:38.967
Compression is encoding. – CL. – 2016-01-08T10:23:27.313