Here's the situation:

My current sound system uses a optical spdif output/input. The only problem is I have to connect it to my onboard HD audio which isn't to sharp.

I have found that even a lowly SB Live card is quite an improvement & will give me EAX capable sound .
The problem is the SB Live card that I have has a two pin connector mounted on the PCB that says CD SPDIF which is an optical output but it is not the square optical type of connector.
I am looking for some kind of adapter that plugs into this CD SPDIF socket (see pic)

Anyone know where I can get one?

My other option is to buy a new card with an optical out but that is an unwanted expense.

What is it you are trying to do ?

That SPDIF is an input to connect to the digital output of a CD/DVD drive in the PC.

well that puts pay to that idea then . I thought it was an optical out that I could use to connect to my amp. :doh:

What exactly is the problem? If you connect it through SPDIF from your onboard audio or your SBLive shouldn't matter in terms of quality, as long ast hey both meet certain specifications. And believe me most hardware does. If there is any difference, it's probably in your head.
Apart from that you won't notice such differences on a normal set you can get anywhere.

What might be the problem is that you're trying to play a 44kHz file, but most audio hardware upsamples that to 48kHz, and for output purposes might downsample it again to 44kHz. These conversions give a loss of quality. It could also be that your amp internally only works with 44kHz, but might get a 48kHz signal from PC, so it has to convert it itself. Generally standalone equipment is reasonable at this, but it still adds a loss of quality.
To make it clear, most music has sampling rate of 44kHz.

So what you want to do is enable "passtrhough", or another way to circumvent the conversions. Also note that windows upsamples it to 48kHz by default, so you have to circumvent that too. However most of this can be done if your audio hardware has decent drivers, but it depends on the hardware too sometimes.

Quote from stry90dis :

What exactly is the problem? If you connect it through SPDIF from your onboard audio or your SBLive shouldn't matter in terms of quality, as long ast hey both meet certain specifications. And believe me most hardware does. If there is any difference, it's probably in your head.

wtf No, my on board is far inferior to the SB live, not only have I read a review which confirms this I have also heard the same game on my bros comp through an SB live & there are extra sounds that I am missing.
Not only that, the on board is not EAX capable in BF2, which I need it to be.

What is a passthrough? can I get the sblive to output through the onboard outlet?

I don't think that the SB Live uses Eax. It sounds moderately better than onboard (I used to have one), but it's nothing earth shattering.

Quote from Jakg :

I don't think that the SB Live uses Eax.

The one i have does . http://www.amazon.com/Creative ... 060-Digital/dp/B000RWCUWW
& it also supports 5.1 surround. Such a shame it has no optical out.

Once again, using SPDIF and passthrough it does not matter what soundcard you have since the soundcard is completely circumvented. The only thing that the SPDIF connection does on your $1000 soundcard or your onboard audio is converting the 1's and 0's from your sound to an electrical signal which only has two states High and Low, nothing in between.

Since you seem to think that your Soundblaster using analog ouputs is better then the digital SPDIF output from your onboard leads inevitably to the conclusion that the DAC's in your stereo are even worse then the ones on the Soundblaster.

Quote from stry90dis :

Once again, using SPDIF and passthrough it does not matter what soundcard you have since the soundcard is completely circumvented.

Since you seem to think that your Soundblaster using analog ouputs is better then the digital SPDIF output from your onboard leads inevitably to the conclusion that the DAC's in your stereo are even worse then the ones on the Soundblaster.

So I can bypass my poor onboard audio chip & connect my SB live via pass through to the SPDIF port on my mobo??

You are getting confused mate I cant use analog outputs, like I said the connection to my amp is optical only. Somehow I think my DAC's are fine since they are sitting inside £300 worth of Harman Kardon AVR Receiver .