# Sound Card - Optical Out



## Fozzy (Nov 17, 2008)

Has anyone have any luck with getting the optical out working in FreeBSD on their sound card?

I am looking for recommendations on what to buy, so that I can feed it to my receiver and have a nice music server.


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## Fozzy (Nov 18, 2008)

Specifically anyone try the Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum EX?  Or just the plain Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum?


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## s-tlk (Nov 18, 2008)

I have a Terratec Aureon, which uses the cmi audio driver:

```
pcm1@pci0:7:2:0:	class=0x040100 card=0x1144153b chip=0x011113f6 rev=0x10 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'C-Media Electronics Inc.'
    device     = 'CMI8738/PCI C3DX C-Media Audio Controller'
    class      = multimedia
    subclass   = audio
```
and I can enable the optical spdif output with 
# sysctl dev.pcm.1.spdif_enabled=1
I always use this to put music on my ac3 receiver and it has never disappointed me in any way. The quality is very good, what isn't supprising, because the audio stream is 'only' put through the optical wire.

Furthermore I got a recommendation that the Audiotrack cards have the same ability, but I can't verify that. The new hda driver, theoretical, provide a new device in purpose to convert the signal to put it out on spdif. I'll try that in future. I have no ideas about your cards. I never try them.

If you want spdif output on FreeBSD, I suggest you buy a Terratec for arround 20 Eur (~25-30 USD I guess).


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## chibis (Nov 19, 2008)

I have Audigy Platinum EX and optical out works fine in PCM mode. I think that any card supported by snd_emu10kx should work with optical output.

on snd_emu10kx AC3 stream will be distorted by driver & card, it will not be detected and decoded by receiver.

Yuriy.


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## siffre (Nov 19, 2008)

I have a Zoltrix Nightingale Pro 6 also using the CMI8738/PCI-chip. With the "builtin" sound (described by s-tlk above) I didn't get SPDIF output to work, but with OSS from ports it works perfectly.

One thing I especially like is the automatic change of output signal frequency between 44.1 and 48kHz depending on the source. Previously (in linux) i always had to change that manually (or suffer quality degrade).


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