Digital Audio Extractor?

[Vchat20]

Does anyone know of a device out there that can do the following?:

I have a digital cable box with Digital Audio Out (specifically the Pioneer Voyager 1000). and my digital cable lineup includes Music Choice. and I wanted to have a direct connection from the Cable Box to computer via Digital audio so I can save the songs directly to my Hard Drive.

but unfortunately, I have but a simple crappy soundcard with nothing but Speaker Out, Line In, and microphone ports. I am looking for a device that can save the digital audio via USB, Serial or something else. cuz I dont have the money to go out an buy a high-end audio card like SB Live! Audigy or something like that.

 

[Vchat20]

So, I guess noone knows? cuz I hate the idea of having to buy a new sound card.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Believe it or not, digital audio output in itself is not expensive. In fact, if sound cards were digital audio only, they would all be extremely cheap. In a digital audio setup, the majority of the sound processing is done by the stereo system, which is expected to be expensive if you want good sound to begin with.

You can get very good quality digital sound cards for as cheap as $30. Avoid the creative ones though, I hear they have crippled the digital output somehow. Ironic too, because their cards are the most expensive. So far as recording in digital audio though, I don't know much about it. In theory, a computers software should be able to handle all of the processing, making the hardware cheap, but I don't know.

 

[Vchat20]

well, i can look for a cheap DA soundcard. but really I would want a simple device that can get the Digital Audio and save it directly to Hard Disk from the source so it wont lose any quality.

 

[AlphaWolf]

You only lose quality when you convert from digital to analog, analog to analog, or analog to digital. If you are recording from a digital source, there is no loss in quality, unless you re-encode to a lossy format.

 

[euphoria]

If your box has SPDIF output it shouldn't be a problem to find a soundcard that has SPDIF.
SPDIF = SONY - PHILIPS DIGITAL INPUT FORMAT or something like that. i think its the "standard". At least my soundcard has a SPDIF io.

 

[fluffy]

Dit Aud Extr.

the answer is to get a cable...

Does the digital out put look like a square socket
If so you can purchase a cable from your local audio retailer
Called an optical audio cable they are commonly used on mini disc's (md) so you can use one of those AND it doesn't matter if your sound card isn't digital cos the cable converts it from d->a
Trust me it works (ive done it)

:baaa:

 

[Vchat20]

Re: Dit Aud Extr.

the answer is to get a cable...

Does the digital out put look like a square socket
If so you can purchase a cable from your local audio retailer
Called an optical audio cable they are commonly used on mini disc's (md) so you can use one of those AND it doesn't matter if your sound card isn't digital cos the cable converts it from d->a
Trust me it works (ive done it)

:baaa:

It is a coxial output. and I will try and look for that cable. know a more specific name to search by?

 

[Reznor007]

A digital optical cable(called a Toslink cable) won't work unless you have a soundcard that has a Toslink input, which is a square socket.

Also, since you have coaxial digital output, you wouldn't be able to use a Toslink cable anyway.

You can get a SB Live + Live drive(which has all the digital inputs you would want) on Ebay or Pricewatch for pretty cheap.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Toslink and coaxial transmit exactly the same data. The only difference is one is electronic and one is optic. Believe it or not, the coaxial one is better. Coax can do 10mbps, toslink can only do 4mbps. Toslink also has to go through the toshiba optical converter, which adds audio jitter. Coaxial is a direct electronic data connection, where optical goes electron --> photon, then photon --> electron again.

BTW, do NOT use creative cards for this, they do a terrible job for either coax or optical. Ironicaly, the cheaper brands have better audio quality through these. The main reason creative cards cost more is because they have a better quality DAC than most cards. If you use digital audio however, you aren't even using the sound cards DAC, you are using your stereo systems DAC instead. Don't buy a card with an expensive DAC if you aren't even going to use it.

 

[Gorxon]

Toslink and coaxial transmit exactly the same data. The only difference is one is electronic and one is optic. Believe it or not, the coaxial one is better. Coax can do 10mbps, toslink can only do 4mbps. Toslink also has to go through the toshiba optical converter, which adds audio jitter. Coaxial is a direct electronic data connection, where optical goes electron --> photon, then photon --> electron again.

Well, one question, digital data is digital data. I mean, if you get any electric disturbence you don't get crackling using digital audio, you get no sound at all...
So, how can the optical add any jitter to the audio? You don't get jitter in a wav file be transferring it with a bad cable...I don't know if you get my point, if not I'll try to explain better later as I'm quite curious about this..

And, the sound card sends out data, how would it know whether to send out 4mbps or 10? Does the amplifier really send a signal which cable that is connected? I find that hard to believe...another option is that the sound card sends 4mbit in the optical port and 10mbit in the coaxial port, but then it would have to somehow "cut" down the sound quality for the optical port?? Again, I find this weird..

 

[AlphaWolf]

SPDIF (the protocol used by both toslink and coax) is not necessarily a 1:1 audio signal (pretty close though). Both toslink and coax cause jitter, optical just happens to be much worse.

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/viewpoint/0401/deficienciesofspdif.htm

As for the bandwidth going through it, theres no upsampling or downsampling, as neither DTS nor AC3 (aka dolby digital) will use more than 4mbit (although its possible that future sound formats will...). Toslink was actualy origionaly created as a link for toshiba laptops (hence toshiba-link). I was pointing out the bandwidth just to show that simply because its optical doesn't mean its better like poeple like to believe

 

[Gorxon]

Ah, thanks a lot, got it clearly now

Anyways, I'm using coax to my amplifier thru an about 4 meter long cable...however, when someone turn off the light somewhere in the house, or other electronic devices (they have to be much closer though), the sound stops because of the interference...any tips on how to avoid this? Shorter cable is unfortunately not possible i'm afraid, but I dunno if this is what's causing it at all...

 

[AlphaWolf]

That is one downside of coax, what you can do though is sheild your cable better. Try getting a very high quality monster or acoustic research (cheaper, same quality) component cable. I actualy only use 6 foot long cables myself.

 

[Reznor007]

While jitter is present in digital audio, it is hardly ever an issue. Most modern SPDIF receivers will reclock the data so that jitter isn't really a problem.

You mainly just need a decent cable(not necessarily expensive either). One of the Radio Shack gold series video cables will work great(I use one from my Rotel CD player to my Integra receiver). But whatever cable you get, make sure it is labeled either digital audio cable or VIDEO cable, standard RCA audio cables are different. Video cables and digital audio cables are the exact same thing, shielded 75 Ohm RCA cables, audio cables have a different resistence, which can cause problems.

The only problem with SB Live's digital sound was that used 5V instead of 1V, which is out of spec, but from everything I've heard, only caused problems on Denon receivers. Audigy doesn't have the problem IIRC.

 

[Gorxon]

Well, I use quite good cables I believe, not Monster or anything like that, we don't have that here :doh:

I think the cables are shielded with gold plated plug and so on and they were quite expensive...but the thing is that it is actually audio cables, so I guess the problem could lay there. But it isnt that much of a problem, it happens much less now so I guess I won't care. Thanks for the tips though!