reapher

For a long time now I've had an audigy 2 zs and recently I got the idea of buying the breakout box for my case. I bought one that I thought was the 5.25" internal drive with cables but it turns out it's an external one for audigy(1) platinum ex. So I also just bought an audigy platinum ex card it comes with the SB0110B daughter board that converts the ad_ext on the card to the external aud_ext and firewire plugs. After reading more about these pins/drives it looks like audigy 1 ext header is a little different than the audigy 2 ext header. Has the audigy 1 box been reported to work with an audigy 2 zs card or are there any little modifications to make it work? The box itself doesn't seem to have changed much from SB live through SB x-fi but I don't know about the ad_ext pins on the cards. If it doesn't work at least I'll have an original audigy for this box but I wanted to use the audigy 2 zs features with the optical IO. I have the dolby live/dts connect pack from creative for my zs, would that work with the audigy 1?

Tyrsonswood

Audigy (1) uses the AUX_EXT card connector, Audigy 2 and newer Use the AD_EXT. They are not compatible and there's no easy way to make them work together. Guys have messed around making custom cables with mixed results........ Better to just stay with what the factory has developed and not try to mix these two.

Depending on your OS you can run both cards, the A 2ZS and the Audigy Platinum EXT using kX drivers and link them via SPDIF........ Win7 seems weird with two cards but XP works great.

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reapher

I can't physically link them together because the plain ZS card doesnt have a standard spdif plug, I had bought the box just to get optical in and out on my zs. Maybe if there is a way to do it by software to directly output from the zs spdif out to the audigy spdif in but then I think the audigy is gonna decode it and I lose my dolby live/dts connect ability? It would also mean downgrading the zs SNR to the 100db of the audigy Are there are past threads dealing with this?

Tyrsonswood

There is a CD SPDIF input connector on the top card edge of the A 2zs...... It's COAX not optical, but a simple cable can be made easily to get it to the outside of the computer case. So the SPDIF out of the Audigy Platinum connects to the CD SPDIF input of the A 2ZS.......

I never messed with Dolby myself, so I don't know if that will be an issue or not.

But as far as past threads dealing with this exact issue, probably not, but there are quite a few dealing with two or more cards, trying to adapt drives to cards they weren't meant for and hooking up external drives. So there is a lot of information here on the forums.

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reapher

After looking more into this is seems that there has been a series of extension brackets for only spdif io from the live cards through x-fi. Is any of these known to work with the A2ZS? It has the header for spdif io on the board as well as aud_ext. Doesn't aud_ext already carry the spdif signals? Is there an spdif extension made just for the SB0350 A2ZS ? Worse comes to worse I'll just have to use adapters for the 1/8" spdif out and the 2 pin spdif in but I'm looking for a more polished solution and optical IO on my ZS if possible (without buying ANOTHER breakout box

Tyrsonswood

Not sure if they made one of those cards for the A2ZS or not....... Those cards do create an optical I/O, though, besides the COAX Digital. (at least the cards for the Audigy 1 does) The COAX is just an extension of what is present on the AD_EXT (AUX_EXT for the older cards) from what I understand, the Optical probably is as well, but buffered and turned into the light source.

Scour eBay and see if somebody lists one of those cards for the A2ZS, even if you don't buy one there, eBay can be a useful information source.

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reapher

One thing I overlooked about having 2 audigy cards as well as the daughter board for the external box is that I don't have enough rear expansion openings on my computer with free pci slots to make it work with my graphics card in the way! So now I'm looking high and low for a SB0250 io box with the ribbon cables, that's the one built for the A2ZS. Best I can come up with either must come with a card and cost >$100 or don't have the ribbon cable or the remote or something or else it's the X-Fi box with no firewire > I want no compromises on this, and no more run-around. If anyone reads this who has an extra SB0250 (not SB0250a) or can make the ribbon cable 100% working to connect SB0110b board to the SB0350 Audigy 2 ZS working inputs and drive detection, I'm looking to spend money to make this work. Please send me a message if you can help me out

tti100

It's over a year on , Reapher, have you find a solision to having breakout box with SB0350 ?
I've seen some info here at this good forum !!!