# Recommend a compatible sound card with digital out



## jstarcher (May 16, 2012)

I am trying to get digital audio out on an nForce4 motherboard to work but after several nights I've given up. Can someone recommend a cheap sound card that will work with digital out without much fuss?

My receiver accepts coaxial or optical. I don't care much either way as the quality is the same, I just want something I can drop in.

Also, is digital as the only sound output a bit of a pain even with a compatible card? For example, will Flash work after setting the default PCM card? Will every application I run need special settings or is setting it at the kernel level enough?


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## jstarcher (May 17, 2012)

The answer: RocketFish 5.1 from Best Buy - $10

The story:
Well apparently the nForce4 does not work with S/PDIF. I spent a couple days trying to get it to work, tried the freebsd FreeBSD drivers and OSS. No luck. So today I went to BestBuy and bought a $10 card made by BestBuy which has optical out. Turns out to be a rebadged Audigy LS which also doesn't work with freebsd FreeBSD drivers.

I noticed it was supported by OSS so I had to recompile the kernel and remove the stock sound module, then compile OSS. It could then see my card. I found in oss_audigyls(7) that there is a config file I could create to add a setting to enable S/PDIF. I did that and boom, it worked!

Finally have some super clean sound produced by a Burr Brown DAC pushed to some B&W speakers :e


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