CREATIVE LABS SOUNDBLASTER "Z SE"
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HOME THEATER and OPTICAL Toslink was released in 1983 and high-end CD players of the era typically came with both an optical and coaxial (S/PDIF) digital output. Sending a PCM bitstream from your CD player to an outboard DAC soon became all the rage in audiophile circles. Dolby Digital came out in 1991 and when DVD players appeared in 1997 they included an optical output to transmit the 5.1 digital channels for home theater. When Blu-Ray players appeared in 2006 they came with optical outputs on the rear for the same purpose. Largely forgotten is that in 2002 Windows XP came in a special version known as the "Media Center Edition". The intent was to make your PC an entertainment hub by playing content stored on its hard drive. Ripped CDs, DVD's, and TV programs could be played back on your TV or PC monitor which spawned the concept of a Home Theater PC (HTPC). Microsoft expanded the Media Center concept by making the program standard in Windows 7 in 2009. This meant that for over a decade a home theater PC filled with A/V content was commonplace. Yet when Windows 10 arrived in 2015 it dropped the Media Center program much to the frustration of the home theater community. This gave the impression that Microsoft had been pressured by the movie studios to stop encouraging home theater libraries. Coincidentally, with smart phones and Ipads using subscription-based streaming the movie studios breathed a sigh of relief. Instead of obsessing about piracy and file-sharing they now had a more secure model. HDMI 1.0 which had appeared in 2002 was quickly promoted because it could support DRM and inhibit piracy, optical did not. So its no accident that HDMI became the new favored cable for home theater as the industry actively steered people away from a HTPC using optical. HDMI lobbyists like to discourage optical by stating the 5.1 surround it carries is compressed and lossy. So? CD, DVD and Blu-Ray all use some form of compression to fit data on the disc. Dolby Digital and DTS use an algorithm to compress their soundtracks at the film level as well. What the lobbyists avoid mentioning is that HDMI carries the same DD/DTS 5.1 signal that optical does. Sending 5.1 though HDMI instead of optical doesn't improve the sound quality or move the data faster. In fact it wasn't until 2013 when HDMI 2.0 appeared that lossless formats like DD TrueHD or DTS-HD could take advantage of the extra bandwith. The reality is that the six channels of standard DTS/DD 5.1 have always passed perfectly over optical: because they were designed to from the very beginning. |
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I needed a new optical solution for my old-school HTPC and looked at the Creative Z SE sound card with a signal-to-noise of 116 dB and "Hi-Res" 24 bit/192khz DAC. The card is marketed as a High-performance PCI-e Gaming and Entertainment Sound Card yet nowhere in its feature/benefit statement is home theater or hifi playback mentioned. The only reference is "Advanced Entertainment Audio to provide you with low-latency and high-fidelity audio, even for your recordings!".
This card provides 5.1 discrete channels from its 3.5 mm speaker jacks (Front, Rear, C/Sub) and up to 7.1 virtual surround on headphones. This requires that you install their Creative Command software in Windows. The software then encodes all audio into DD Live or DTS Connect. Important to remember is that these two effects were not designed for home theater but for gaming on PCs. This means if you're a videophile and want to hear 5.1 the way the movie studios intended, using DD Live or DTS Connect is not the best choice. TV and smart phones use another effect, AAC 5.1, which is considered a bit better than MP3 with average performance. The card has an optical out jack but Creative is vague about its purpose. Can it be used to send a 5.1 bitstream to a robust home theater system? Yes. |
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The secret is to go into the Creative Command software to the Encoder tab and turn it off. Then go to the Playback section. Ignore the Speakers/Headphones tab and go to the DIGITAL tab and set SPDIF-Out as the default. Per Creative "it allows bit-to-bit streaming of up to 24 bit, 96khz PCM data signal without processing". Finally, go into Windows and set the default sound device in Windows to SPDIF-Out. NOTE: The Audio-Quality dropdown in the Digital Tab actually resamples/converts the bitstream for stereo signals. It does not have an effect on DD/DTS. Keep in mind that resampling can introduce audible artifacts. So I leave mine set to 48khz and change it to 44khz for CDs. The result is PCM 5.1 out of the optical jack just like from a DVD or Blu-ray player. Movies played on my PC using PowerDVD or VLC correctly display DTS/Dolby Digital in my receiver's display. When in 6.1 or 7.1 the surrounds and dual rears play properly including my dual subs. Sound is crystal clear and effects are 360° steerable and correct. In other words the pass-thru works like its supposed to with no apparent licensing issues. Thank you Creative for making this functional. However, because this card can pass-thru a true DTS/DD 5.1 bitstream it raises an issue. Dolby Digital Live/DTS Connect soundcards and Realtek ALC1200/ALC1220P codecs were used heavily in HTPCs over the last 2 decades. This means that those videophiles were likely listening to processed DD Live/DTS Connect 5.1 or AAC instead of the original digital tracks. Think of the years of lost enjoyment(!) |
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CONCLUSION In the 2000s there were contentious lawsuits between and Dolby and Creative over the use of DD decoding on soundcards. It seems from the very beginning the PC world and the Movie Studios have been at odds over consumer-controlled home theater. While DVD & Blu-Ray players came happily licensed with 5.1 optical outputs the soundcard companies struggled to market a soundcard with optical out for "Home Theater Use". I wouldn't be surprised if strong licensing agreements require a focus on gaming and don't allow the term "home theater" to appear in soundcard advertising. Regardless, DTS and Dolby Digital via optical are benchmarks that continue to provide stunning 7.1 surround after 20 years. The Lossless versions could easily play over optical if the circuit was redesigned by the industry to carry the extra channels. But it goes without saying that because of the new model of Smart TVs with Soundbar using HDMI with DRM this will never happen. I prefer a HTPC with home theater library using 7.1 over optical because of its robust performance, rock solid reliability, and lack of handshake issues. The HDMI and Lossless marketers continue to steer people away from optical by using the term "lossy", but don't let those trolls make you neurotic. |
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