Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems 3 * S/P-DIF out from PC? -- or HQ 5.1 analogue?

The X-Meridian card has an addon card that has a "DIN" plug, containing 4xSPDIF signals...

I guess you have to make your own cable to split the DIN into 4 RCA plug, but then it should ok.

I think a few on AVS forum use this on their modded Denon preamps.

Thanks, I saw that DIN addon card mentioned - but disregarded that since it sounded too lowtech and I never saw that it had 4*SPDIF...

I have put that HTPC on hold at the moment, since the concerts with 720p/24/96 6.1 I should have gotten in the end of April are still not ready - and my money has filled other holes instead...

I saw Auzentech are discontinuing the X-Meridian due to the C-Media chip being discontinued, instead thay have released the X-Fi prelude which can take the same addon card.

Tommy, I did what you are talking about with an Audigy 2 ZS sound card.

But I replaced the card with a 2 channel card and just went with 1PCM stream or DD/DTS a couple of years ago. Reason, soundquality was worse with decoding DD/DTS in PC than in the G68.

And 1 PCM for music was enough and provided better soundquality over SPDIF with the ESI Maya 44 than the Audigy 2.

I used a special ASIO capable driver with the Audigy2 but the new card was ASIO as well and with tighter drivers..

If what all here are saying is true, you could get the X-Fi prelude and start soldering for your particular project. The G9 connector is probably they key...

BUT, I'm leaning on USB cards/DACs because many report they are getting better fidelity with less interference with an outboard sound decoder.

I will start a thread about USB audio into G68 soon..

Tommy,

There are still X-Meridian cards to be found in some online stores ... if you are going digital, there is no need to pay almost the double price for the Prelude.

/Sören

I found that Soundblaster X-Fi have 4 SPDIF signals available as well... there is a DIN cable for the pinout listed below.

http://lh5.google.com/rmorinr/RiD8mP-MwAI/AAAAAAAAANM/65oaEy5-Rxg/ad_ext.jpg

/Sören

Soren:

That link doesn't work....

I'm intrigued by this for Blu-ray / HD-DVD on the HTPC.

Cheers,

John:
Product link:
http://www.soundblaster.com/products/x-fi/

Good write up on the board architecture:
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2005q4/soundblaster-x-fi/index.x?pg=1

ken

Yeah looks like the connector on the old Audigy cards. Will probably work with a bit of research on the pins on X-Fi.

Just drill a couple of WBT Nextgen in a bracket and solder them to the correct pins. If you want better grounding/impedance characteristics, Empirical Audio is pretty good at modding sound cards on these parameters. But ofcourse that raises the budget a bit.

I also noticed apart from going all "creative" on the Auzentech Prelude, they skipped all changable OP-amps except one (L/R) on the new card. Only useful for analog connections ofcourse

The link above works for me ??
Here is the parent folder for that image!

http://picasaweb.google.com/rmorinr/SoundBlasterXFi

Maybe they have blocked external links to pictures on that site... When I'm testing putting three of the more interesting pictures in this reply and doing Preview, I only see one of them. We'll see if you see anyone at all... - changed now to links...

My original interest is in playing unprotected WMA-HD with lossless multichannel highres audio, I guessed that Blu-ray/HD-DVD wouldn't work due to restrictions on drivers imposed by the content owners. Maybe Auzentech has been under the radar, but the Prelude with Creative drivers will be blocked?


http://picasaweb.google.com/rmorinr/SoundBlasterXFi/photo#5088990220038055218
http://picasaweb.google.com/rmorinr/SoundBlasterXFi/photo#5088990224333022530
http://picasaweb.google.com/rmorinr/SoundBlasterXFi/photo#5089273975642400178

Seems images doesn't work if there's a hyphen in a folder name in its path...

Here's "Soren's picture":