Need audio help

[Slavetocaffeine]

Alright so my wife bought me a new headset and pc sound system for my bday. It's a steel series siberia 840 and a logitech z906. I recently built a top notch gaming pc, motherboard is the asus maximum formula (so you can see what audio options are available. With that being said, both The z906 have a spdif in/out and The steel series have a spdif connector as well for 7.1 surround ect.. is there a way to connect these both to my pc simultaneously or am I going analog on one no matter what? Just wondering if I can just switch up from headset to speakers on the fly or if I want fiber optics for both do i need to switch a cable when needed.

Much appreciate the input and I'm open to any feasible suggestions.

Thanks again.

 

[ssddx]

i could not find it in the specs, but it looks like both optical or 3.5mm inputs are available on the 840. it might also have usb as well as a standalone option but you would need to read the manual. i think the usb might be just for microphone.

honestly, optical is not needed given how i believe that set uses dolby virtual surround sound to emulate true surround sound so going with optical is only beneficial if A) you have a bad dac onboard your pc or B) dont have a decently shielded 3.5mm cable.

the z906 can use optical for 5.1, but optical only can carry an uncompressed 2.0 signal. when it is used for 5.1 (and all devices would need to support it) it would be a compressed audio dolby digital signal. going with analog 3.5mm cables may actually sound a little better depending on the quality of the source you are connecting up. optical would only sound better if the dac onboard the z906 is better than your onboard or if you have alot of EMI where going with analog might be affected.

there are such things as optical switches, but given how one source would be 5.1 and the other 2.0 it would not be so hot swappable without changing all your settings. going with one analog and the other optical or going with both as analog would be better.

if you have both plugged in at once, you can swap between them using windows default audio device instead of unplugging one or the other. it is also possible to just plug in your 840's headphone (3.5mm) cable into the side of the z906 pod when you want to use it.

 

[Slavetocaffeine]

Yeah the 840's have a 3.5, spdif, and usb (for the mic). So I would be better off using 3 separate 3.5 cables from the sub to my pc and hooking up the headset via spdif (It states in the manual for he headset that optical is the best option for 7.1). The z906 comes with a set of 3.5 but I imagine they are most likely sub par.

 

[ssddx]

afaik optical is only capable of 5.1 compressed not 7.1. given that the headset is only a stereo headset however, its a moot point as the signal is going to be 2.0 uncompressed which then gets 'modified' to sound like surround sound by the dac onboard the headset.

is optical going to really make the headset sound better? not really, unless the headset only post processes virtual surround on an optical signal not the 3.5mm. it really should work on either of them though as both are going to be 2.0 sources.

the cables that come with the z906 are likely adequate although agreed they arent the absolute best you can buy. i havent owned the z906 or z506 but on the older 5.1 x530 i had emi pickup wasnt an issue with stock cables. i've since moved on to better things than pc sound systems, but it was decent for the money spent.

tldr; one via optical, one via 3x3.5mm cables should work for you.

 

[Slavetocaffeine]

Much appreciate it brother, that's kinda what I was expecting. Thanks again for the timely responses and information.