Hi there:
I can't listen to audio cds in my mdk system (is not a big problem actually) because i don't have an analog audio cord plugged from cd rom drive to the mobo. Anyway, window$ has a feature: 'enable digital audio playback for cdrom drives' which makes audio signal go through IDE cables, is this possible under mdk 9.1??

i'm not going to do your homework for you since i don't know the answer offhand but here's a link...

http://www.alsa-project.org/documentation.php3

... that might help

--cheers

Re post 1 in the thread - "selecting digital..." doesn't actually give u sound along the IDE cable in Windoze.

What that refers to is the following:

you will notice there are two small sockets on the back of your CD/DVD-ROM drive (in addition to the IDE and power ones that is!) - one is for connecting the analog-out cable to your soundcard/mobo, the other one is for connecting the digital-out cable to your soundcard/mobo. I have both connected (I like to be sure!) from the back of my drive to my soundcard (an audigy which has inputs for both) and both of these can be muted/unmuted etc in the mixer software programs under the "sound" menu.

These cables are cheap btw - you can pick them up for 2 or 3 quid (or less) if you shop around. If your soundcard or mobo (if you have an onboard chip) has input connectors for both, pick up a digital-out cable - the sound quality is MUCH better than using analog-out.

Hope this helps

Pete the (almost) noob.

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'In letters of gold on a snow-white kite, I will write "I love you!". And send it soaring high above you, for all to read!' R.I.P Mr Mackenzie...

Hey Pete,

I have been reading up on this subject as I am currently having a few sound problems on my own ( plays cd audio fine from dvd player but not from cdrw player - but i will sort this out when i get my hands on my pc).

So , I was trying to understand where the actual data stream goes to hopefully solve my problem. I came across this bit of info

http://www.djcj.org/LAU/guide/audio_...TO.htm#cdaudio

here it states that you can rip the music from the cd and send it to the sound card digitally for DAC by the sound card and not by the cdplayer. And that there is now some nice software to do this real time ( no copying on to the harddrive)

What are your thoughts ?

Dan

i appreciated your answer Puppy, and well, i thought the signal was going along the ide cables, as it was the only cable plugged to the cd rom drive, with just the ide cable and the configuration mentioned above, i was able to listen cds in windows and i'm afraid i'm still in doubt because of this... any ideas??
Anyway, i bought the damned analog audio cord, and now i'm able to listen to music cds in mdk
Cheers!!!

Err... it does!

There are 3 common ways of getting audio from an audio CD in a standard CDRom drive. Using the analogue (I'm English, hence the ue at the end ) audio cable, using the digital cable or using digital data extraction. Just like when you rip a CD into wav files, the data is being pulled down through the IDE cable - I can personally verify this since it is the only type of cable I have connected to any of my CD/DVD drives!

If you're using XMMS (and I suggest you do since it's a nice little media player for the GUI), then you can download an alternative CDaudio plugin that is capable of doing digital audio-data extraction.

The default audio CD reader for XMMS is called CD Audio Player and you want to look for AudioCD Reader.

Go for it (oh, and I know it's been linked to before on the forums, so check out the search button )

And so the mists start to clear!

I have a few questions (with my guesses) on this ....

1) Which produces the highest quality sound , digital cable or digital audio extraction (DAE) ?

(My guess) They should be the same as the digital data is pased to the DAC on the sound card ?

2) Will both of the digital methods put sound out on my 5.1 speakers ?

(My guess) I read somewhere that because music is recorded in 2.1 that it will only play on 2.1 of my speakers ?


Looking forward to the reply as I have spent the last two weeks trying to get sound out of my cdrw , which puzzles me as the dvd players plays audio cds fine.

Many thanks

Dmartini