• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Trying to go PC/USB to multiple destinations.....very confused... help, please?

weez

New Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2020
Messages
2
Likes
2
I'm a complete noob at this, so maybe even the questions I'm asking don't make sense, and I might not even be using the proper terms. I have read so many articles and looked at the descriptions of so many devices, I now feel hopelessly confused, and thought maybe some of the folks reading these forums might be able to give me some pointers. The forum heading said not to be shy, so here goes.....

TL;DR Any advice how to get discrete multi-channel output from Windows 10 PC simultaneously to both receiver and wireless headphones (headphones would only have spdif input).

I am using my Windows 10 PC as both a gaming platform and media server (music + movies + OTA TV). There are a number of different audio formats encoded on the media server (mono, stereo, Dolby Digital, DTS, etc.), and some of the games support various implementations of surround-sound audio. This is what my goal is:
  • Audio simultaneously going to a Sony STR-DH590 receiver (connected to 5.1 speakers) and the base station of Steel Series Arctis Pro Wireless headphones.
  • Control which device(s) I'm listening to at any given time at the device (power on/off for headphones, mute/unmute for receiver): one or the other alone, or both at the same time.
  • Set a single output for the Windows 10 audio output device and not have to change it.
I've been able to accomplish part of this so far using the PC motherboard's optical output to the headphone base station's optical input, and using the base station's optical output to feed the optical input of the receiver. This does everything I'm trying to do except for one thing. The issue I'm trying to overcome is that I can't seem to have more than 2 channels of discrete output to the receiver. I think this is fine for music and movies encoded with Dolby ProLogic, but insufficient for movies encoded with AC 5.1 and DTS. The motherboard's drivers only support 2-channel output over the optical output and I found a support article that the same applies to the headphone's optical output (so even though the headphones have a USB connection to the PC, the optical output can't be used to go to the receiver since it only supports 2 channels). And given driver issues I've had in the past, I don't really want to play around with third party motherboard drivers.

My thought was to use an external sound card that connected to the PC using USB (no room in the chasis for a PCIe card) and had an optical output to feed the headphones and another output (optical, coax digital, hdmi) that supported AC 5.1, DTS, etc. multi-channel that could simultaneously feed the receiver. Or, just use the external card's optical output (if it supported the multi-channel formats) and split it to both receiver and headphones with something like this. This approach would also have the advantage of a bit of future-proofing since I could migrate the whole thing to a new PC and not be concerned about the motherboard's audio capabilities. And from what I understand, the audio quality would be better than what I could get from a motherboard.

I'm finding that many of the external USB sound cards specifically say they only support 2 channels over optical output, so that wouldn't get me anywhere beyond where I'm currently at. I was thinking about maybe using one of these and splitting the optical output:
  • Sound Blaster X3 configured for Dolby Digital Live encoding over the optical output (although I've read many articles about the shortcomings of the required software/drivers).
  • Soundavo HP-DAC-1
  • Topping D10s (review from Audio Science Review here)
My budget is US $300 or less.

So if this even makes sense, then I would welcome any pointers or suggestions. Especially, if it's "just not worth it" or "can't get to there from here", or a totally different approach. I'd definitely appreciate knowing if I'm barking up the wrong tree or how I can better educate myself on this stuff.

Thank you for reading all this and any help anyone would care to offer.
 

Vincent Kars

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Technical Expert
Joined
Mar 1, 2016
Messages
781
Likes
1,555
I've been able to accomplish part of this so far using the PC motherboard's optical output to the headphone base station's optical input, and using the base station's optical output to feed the optical input of the receiver.

Optical=Toslink=SPDIF (2 channel PCM audio) over fiber.
The headphone base station probably accept SPDIF only.
You can send DTS over Toslink but the receiver must recognize DTS.
The Sony probably does.
You can test this by connecting the PC to the Sony using Toslink.
In the Win audio panel you can test DTS: https://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/Windows/Win7/SPDIF_Win7.htm

single output for the Windows 10 audio output device and not have to change it

If the Sony has HDMI out, you might try a hdmi to toslink audio extractor to daisy chain the sender of the headphone
 
OP
W

weez

New Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2020
Messages
2
Likes
2
Optical=Toslink=SPDIF (2 channel PCM audio) over fiber.
The headphone base station probably accept SPDIF only.
You can send DTS over Toslink but the receiver must recognize DTS.
The Sony probably does.
You can test this by connecting the PC to the Sony using Toslink.
In the Win audio panel you can test DTS: https://ww w.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/Windows/Win7/SPDIF_Win7.htm
If the Sony has HDMI out, you might try a hdmi to toslink audio extractor to daisy chain the sender of the headphone

I checked out that DTS test link and got a huge surprise -- despite the documentation for the motherboard's toslink output, and the toslink output of the headphone base station, my current setup *does* get the DTS discrete channels through to the receiver (the receiver has a nice display that shows what the audio format and channel information being sent to the receiver is, so I could confirm it from the display, and listening to the speakers). Maybe the drivers had been updated since the documentation was written, or I just didn't look at the proper version.

So, I guess I just had to get Windows 10 configured properly. Looks like I won't need any additional devices, after all.

I can't thank you enough for helping me!!
 
Top Bottom