the awe can be connected straight to the coaxial output which is separate on the brackets i've seen. +5v is to power the toslink output. you'll have to get that from the motherboard or psu.

just understand the spdif is only output at 44.1/48khz anything else wont get output. the fm may or may not, its card depending if it goes out the spdif. if your doing soundblaster stuff at say 16khz or stuff (old demos, old games), it wont go out the spdif. also the midi/waveblaster stuff does not go out the spdif too!

the spdif is REALLY limited! imo, not worth it.

also coax + toslink are two different voltage levels, if you connect something to the coax you could damage it from the awe32 signal level.

Hmmmm,
After seeing your post about the Coaxial cable voltage, has made me think i don't want to damage either of my CT2760 cards.

you wont damage the AWE32, you'll damage whatever you plug the other end into! they wont be expecting 5v, they expect -0.5 to +0.5! 1VPP, not 5vPP!

'You'd better not plug into the amplifier, There's a slight possibility of Overload'
Yikes!! - *Gets flung across the room* Whoa!!

since when does the awe output +5v on the spdif connector pins? that's news to me (i think it's more like +0.5v). unless i missed something the only +5v involved here is to power the optical laser on the aftermarket bracket toslink jack.

The 2 pin header on AWE cards is 5V level and not for connection to an RCA plug. Voltage divider is needed the very least and ideally a 1:1 pulse transformer too.

my awe64 gold came with a factory spdif bracket housing a single rca jack. i haven't blown up anything yet, but if i've just been lucky so far i'm surprised creative would welcome this kind of customer relations nightmare not to mention the litigation by supplying the bracket themselves (no 3rd party out).

The bracket the card came with has all the extra parts on it already, it is not a direct connection.

egads, i guess i don't really have a factory bracket. what i got is just wires and an rca jack. i feel ripped off, but then i only paid $3 for the card with free shipping.

The AWE64 puts out -0.5 to 0.5 VPP. The AWE32 puts out 0-5V! they are different.

AWE64 outputs coaxial spdif by design.
AWE32 outputs TTL spdif by design.

some devices can accept TTL voltage levels but its not a gauruntee, so 5v optical on coaxline can destroy things but other things can shrug it off.

why did it change? I think industry as whole moved from ttl design for spdif.
also when awe64 dropped, draft versions of AC97 spec was around and it specified the non-ttl voltage for spdif format for its connectors.

In reality, many S/PDIF inputs will tolerate the signal from an AWE32 without issue, and direct RCA connectivity seems to have been a fairly common practice with these cards; the recommendation for which came from both Creative and various books/publications. I've yet to encounter a reference to damage occuring as a result of this recommendation, but the possibility certainly exists.

For my part, I've been running the "straight" S/PDIF output from an AWE32 (CT3900) into an external pre-amplifier/processor for over fifteen years now, in addition to occasional connectivity to an Edirol UA-1D.

I wasn't aware AWE64 does a proper coax level on its header, good to know.

As far as damage goes, I actually fried the SPDIF input on my ESI Juli@ from using TTL SPDIF on it directly. It worked for a while but then one day it stopped and the receiver chip got a hole in it... It was a 3.3V only part and eventually that 5V level made it fail.

Tiido wrote on 2022-12-21, 02:02:

It was a 3.3V only part and eventually that 5V level made it fail.

Sorry about your loss. 😀

That's an interesting distinction though. If the Juli@ part had been 5V, presumably that would have either prevented or lessened the likelihood of failure?

ESD diodes won't be activated on that pin if it was a 5V device and most likely this wouldn't have happened. I have done some modifications to the card to make it more rugged for this type of damage but I need to find a new receiver chip to really put it into the test 🤣

I use the +5V pin from the PC Speaker connector on my Soundblaster 32 to power the toslink port on the ASUS S/PDIF bracket.

Stretch wrote on 2022-12-21, 14:48:

I use the +5V pin from the PC Speaker connector on my Soundblaster 32 to power the toslink port on the ASUS S/PDIF bracket.

Hmmm, That's actually quite a clever suggestion for powering the optical port. Before your post, I had wondered if any of the pins nearby to the SPDIF pins could supply +5V.

I thought i'd clarify that my original intention is to use the TOSLINK port, and not the co-axial port. TOSLINK always seemed the safer of the 2 to me.
Am i wrong for thinking non conductive, and not shorting out components?

CodeFuApprentice wrote on 2022-12-21, 16:44:

Am i wrong for thinking non conductive, and not shorting out components?

Not at all, and also add "not able to create ground loops" to the advantages of optical over coax.

Proper coax connections are transformer coupled so ground loops won't be a problem on them either.