Boston Acoustics BA735 Digital speakers and Realtek alc892 onboard snd

Hi all

I used to have a Gateway PC with a set of really decent Boston Acoustics BA735 speakers on it. I've upgraded to a new PC with a P8Z68-V motherboard that has the onboard Realtek ALC892 audio. (I'm using Windows 7 64 bit) I want to connect my BA735 speakers. I know that these speakers are digital speakers and so need to be connected to a digital input. They are NOT SPDIF however. The old computer had a Creative Soundblaster Audio card that you could set to analogue or digital output. I know the Realtek ALC892 has digital capability, but I need to be able to output this on the main speaker channel. The cable that goes to the BA735 speakers has a 3.5mm Jack connection for plugging into the normal speaker output from the PC.

When I look at the sound settings in control panel, there are 3 choices of playback device (Speakers, Realtek Digital Output and Realtek Digital Output (Optical)) I'm a little confused as to why there are two digital playback devices. Obviously the optical one is the SPDIF connection, but what's the other. I thought I could use it to output to the BA735 digital speakers, but there seems to be no digital output connection for it. I can make it the default device and the little green bars jump up and down to tell me that audio is playing, but I get no sound if I plug into the speaker sockets.

Can I use digital speakers with the Realtek ALC892 onboard sound?

Tried connecting them via USB?

Gateway Support - USB Cable

there are 3 choices of playback device (Speakers, Realtek Digital Output and Realtek Digital Output (Optical)) I'm a little confused as to why there are two digital playback devices.

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One is a digital coax connection and the other is optical. Not sure why it is showing both though, as there is no coax connection on the motherboard. Unless one of the analogue jacks can be changed to digital from somewhere within the Realtek control panel.

You still have the old computer? If so you could always pull the old sound card out of it and use it in the new.

The old Gateway/Boston Acoustic BA735's are for an older digital interface (only on certain Gateway's) and not compatible with current Digital or Analog interfaces. I've seen this come up a lot in other forums and unfortunately I've never seen a solution.

I have BA745 2.1 speaker system that came with an old Gateway 700S desktop (2002) and these speakers are standard analog interface and still compatible.

Tried connecting them via USB?

Gateway Support - USB Cable

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These don't have USB connections

One is a digital coax connection and the other is optical. Not sure why it is showing both though, as there is no coax connection on the motherboard. Unless one of the analogue jacks can be changed to digital from somewhere within the Realtek control panel.

Click to expand...

That's what I was wondering. Doesn't make sense. With my old soundcard and driver, I used to be able to change the analogue jack to digital, but I can't find any way to do this with the new Realtek one. I was hoping that I could use the non-optical digital output somehow, but if there's no coax connection for it, as you say, I'm not sure what it's there for. I'll try putting my old sound card in the new PC, but don't know if it'll work as I bought it when Windows ME was the new OS! Probably need a Win7 driver.

If you can find a Vista driver for the sound card it may work. Win 7 will work with a Vista driver. However, it won't work with an XP driver as Vista/Win 7 handles some audio functions different from XP.

But, with that old sound card, I doubt you will find some thing that will work. Bite the bullet and get some new speakers.