If you just want to use the I/O panel as a headphone DAC, you can do that much more simply.

See https://polprog.net/blog/audigy2zs/

If you want something likely better sounding (and measuring), easier to implement but a bit more costly, I suggest looking into something like an SMSL DS100 . If your card has noisy analogue out, but also has S/PDIF (coaxial or optical) digital out, cheap "OK" DACs exist

Full disclosure: I own several X-FI and Audigy 2 I/O panels and they all seem to have developped issues to some degree with either reliable detectability or audio or both when used with X-FI cards, which made me consider and buy the SMSL DS100. Though this is overkill for a Live! and its oddly non transparent digital I/O (even at 48KHz). For 44.1KHz content resampled to 48KHz by the Live! card's DSP, you can see how that measures here Re: Not so crazy idea : using a Raspberry Pi 4 with jackd , Zita A2J bridge and jack_mixer to make a software S/PDIF mix along with a comparison to a modern open-source realtime resampler implementation, if that is of interest to you.

EDIT: On the Amazon page for the DS100, there are some other measurement comparisons, if interested.

Well, well, well... I found on DriverHeaven forum a thread dating from 2005 where username 10v3r posted a wiring diagram where he was connecting his Audigy 2ZS card to a Live! front panel (the reverse of what I am trying to do):

... and it works!! I will need to test all connections and report back. But, the headphone jack and volume knob do work!

Source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090605235042/ht … html#post527070

Linoleum wrote on 2024-11-08, 01:46:

Well, well, well... I found on DriverHeaven forum a thread dating from 2005 where username 10v3r posted a wiring diagram where h […]
Show full quote

Well, well, well... I found on DriverHeaven forum a thread dating from 2005 where username 10v3r posted a wiring diagram where he was connecting his Audigy 2ZS card to a Live! front panel (the reverse of what I am trying to do):

The attachment LiveToAudigy2_v2.jpg is no longer available

... and it works!! I will need to test all connections and report back. But, the headphone jack and volume knob do work!

Source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090605235042/ht … html#post527070

Next steps :

a) Design, build/test and "mass" produce a reversible interposer
b) sell and profit 😉

More seriously, I'm glad you got it to work with apparently full functionality.

EDIT: Oh, and if you intend to use this under DOS, especially with the few programs that natively support the Live! on that OS, keep in mind that not all the Live!'s S/PDIF ports are equal under DOS. For an example of the potential caveats, see Re: sblive dos digital output .