Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.chaintech (
More info?)
Since no one else wishes to touch this. First I would contact
Chaintech support and try to get every bit of info possible from
them. Unfortunately most often tech support may not have much
knowledge of what the engineers had in mind. Then try to locate the
Cmedia site, in taiwan I think. There you can locate a pdf file on
the capabilities of the chipset and different drivers. I tried one on
SE, but couldn't get it to work at all. Your luck may be better.
Although the original design capabilities of the chip exceed what is
shown in the user's guide, you may or may not be able to get all of
it working. Chaintech may not have hooked up all the pins, but then
again it might just be a simple editing of part of the install such
as the inf file. Examples of this type of use involve other audio
cards I've used and Creative is a good example. Some of their older
cards were sold under various names even though they used the same
exact chipset. Unfortunately many of their drivers were buggy to say
the least, for enough people that they altered the drivers. But not
for the good. Their typical practice seemed to be to turn off
features completely that didn't work well for everyone. And if Bill
released a new OS, the drivers were dumbed down even further to the
point it had basic audio, probably in hopes of selling you their
latest product. Much of the market was killed when they bought up
aureal and the EAX technologies. Fortunately, Aureal must have left a
loop-hole in the buy-out and maybe release publicly what code they
were using to that point. Result was a group that took it upon
themselves to continue to update drivers for those older cards, at
least up to the time of XP. These were the people responsible for A3D
ver3. and until Creative came out with their latest batch of Audigy,
is it?, those old cards were very desireable, cheap, and claimed to
compare to anything unless you went with a card costing $4-500. Also
the EAX, extended audio functions?, Creative appears to have decided
to release to other companies. Most likely because of another company
with its development of HTRF?, Company is Sensaura I think. This would
have totally killed Creatives cornering of the market. Game developers
were starting to write to that standard along with the A3D, EAX2,
& DSound. Some were even dropping the EAX2 because most card
builders weren't willing to pay the god Creative. But to further
complicate, if you should desire more than what is available on the
MOBO with this Cmedia implementation and decide to go shopping, there
was something in development known as ASIO. An audio/sound IO. I only
touched the surface of that and have no idea how it plays into the
entire field, but it was supposed to simplify and eradicate much of
the troubles being encountered with high quality sound and external
hook-ups. Creative may have even added some of this functionality to
one of their lastest cards.
So what type of hook-up do you have available to this external amp?
This is from the documents at cmedia.
z S/PDIF I/O function:
Output: 96 / 48 kHz with 24 / 20 / 16 bits
Input: 48 / 44.1 / 32 kHz with 20 / 16 bits
S/PDIF In is featured with interrupt, auto-lock, anti-noise, and
anti-distortion functionalities support.
When you download this document, you might be interested in the color
block diagram, with the three options. All could be implemented, but
it appears none are fully available with this MOBO.
If you should try hooking the line out to your amplifier, beware this
usually results in ground loop current and a hum. This can be
overcome with an isolation transformer which I have seen at
Circuitcity recently, WallyWorld, and RadiosHut had them awhile back.
I can not speak to the quality of audio obtained with their products,
especially since they are designed for auto's where you don't expect
top quality sound to start with. They are probably available
elsewhere, but I would try to get the specs as to how wide a band
they pass and if it is relatively flat across the spectrum.
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