USB Audio Card / Optical

Since I'm stuck at home being ill a lot of the time lately I decided to go ahead and put some funds into a new headset for gaming mostly. I love my music and movies though and tend to need a wireless headset so I can work on projects w/o wires in the way.

I had looked into the 7.1 gaming headsets (which I know is virtual surround) and picked up the Astro A40 TR's with the MixAmp and a pair of SteelSeries 800's to give them a whirl. I didn't care much for the sound on the Astro's, the SteelSeries I like a lot better overall. I guess I didn't read the fine print enough and found out the SSeries need to be plugged into an optical port to appropriately use the 7.1 surround.

Frustrated, I looked external sound cards up. I have a SB Recon 3Di in my AW17m3 (2015, as seen below in my sig) but it's not capable of 7.1 nor does it have an optical. I purchased a Sound BlasterX G5. I figured because it has an optical out that I could connect the wireless SSeries amp/transmitter into it and therefore, it would be optical.

I'm using the mini TOSlink provided with the G5; so I have it plugged into the G5's Optical Out and going into the Optical In of the Siberia 800's transmitter unit. Sound is fine, mic is working fine. Little red light is beaming out of the.. well, out, lol.

Now I see the SPDIF-In listed in Recording Devices.. so I figured there would be a SPDIF-Out. Under Playback Devices it shows the G5 and the device as Speakers, utilizing a rear 3.5mm jack. Since there is a SPDIF-In, wouldn't there be a SPDIF-Out?

I am no audiophile. I realize it's tricking my ears and whatnot and I'm okay with that... I'm not bad with computers but I've tried looking it up for days and different installs, re-installs of the software and drivers.., etc. I want to make sure that SPDIF-Out isn't something I am missing. There is no sign of it in Device Manager, PlayBack Devices, etc. I never did a full clean install on this system when I got it. Just in case I screwed something up I did driver cleaning and all that jazz. As for the Recon3Di I left it installed (and have removed it as well to see if it helped) mainly for my 2 speaker setup but to no avail.

If it turns out that SPDIF-out isn't supposed to be there I will laugh at myself, but for now I'd really like to understand why it isn't and if someone could explain it to me, I'd be very grateful.

Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance!

 

The line in doubles up as the optical in and the line out optical out.

Since they are stereo headphones the only reason they recommend optical I think is so the headset uses its own DAC vs the sound card. In a lot of cases using your own DAC or even the DAC of your sound card would sound better. I guess once you have the optical thing sorted you can compare.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Ghostpaws-

I have a LOT of experience with gaming through headphones. I have tons of posts on this topic, and can definitely go into more detail. But for now, I'll summarize it for you:

1) The best bang-for-your-buck you can possibly get with gaming audio is to spend about $125 on an entry-level audiophile stereo headphones, and slap a clip-on mic to it like a Zalman ZM-1 mic ($8) or an Antlion ModMic ($45). You can spend more on headphones, and/or also get a DAC (like a Fiio E10K for $80) But you start hitting diminishing returns at around $200+ for headphones, and $100+ for a DAC.

2) If you want virtual 7.1-channel surround sound for positional audio, download the Razer Surround software package. It does just as good of a job as any of the virtual-surround capabilities baked into sound cards and gaming headsets. But Razer Surround works with any pair of stereo headphones, giving you far more flexibility to craft your sound setup.

3) This one should be obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people get this wrong. Buy headphones from companies that specialize in making audio gear (e.g. Sennheiser, Audio Technica, Beyerdynamic, AKG, Shure, etc). Do not buy headphones from companies that specialize in putting fancy RGB lights on keyboards and mice (e.g. Logitech, Razer, Steelseries, etc).

4) With a budget like yours, you should never buy a "gaming headset." The only time a gaming headset makes sense is if someone's budget is <$100, and they want specific features that you just can't get with entry-level audiophile stereo headphones. Once you go above $100, the sound quality on computer headsets doesn't improve; because the companies that make gaming headsets don't bother putting money into improved sound quality beyond that point. Instead, they spend that money on things like appearance, branding, RGB lights, wireless capabilities, etc. because those are the kinds of features that attract the uneducated buyer walking by a shelf at Best Buy. If you actually want better-than-$100 audio quality, you need to buy headphones, and not a more expensive gaming headset.

5) Ditch wireless, if you can. The sound quality is garbage; charging batteries is a pain-in-the-rear; and the batteries will eventually wear out. You can only ever use a gaming headset on a computer. You don't have the ability to use it on other devices (smartphone, gaming console, etc), because they rely on things like USB, external power, etc. Wireless isn't a "free" feature, compared to wired. You have to sacrifice in multiple dimensions to get wireless (convenience of setup, portability across devices, sound quality, price, selection, longevity / reliability of device), which may or may not be worth it.