True Digital sound from USB?

[xant14]

Can you get proper digital sound, 5.1 from USB?
I know a few products claim to be able to, but can the USB part actually carry the 5.1 out? or is it a stereo signal converted to a 5.1 effect?

One product I have looked at is this... M-AUDIO - Transit - Hi-Resolution Mobile Audio Interface (http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Transit.html)

I am a natural sceptic.

it is for a small media centre pc with no digital sound output, apart from HDMI. And my Amp a Sony 1200ES will only pass thru the HDMI signal without splitting it in the Amp to sound and video.

[xant14]

Bump, he said. Bumpity bump.

[thedeag]

Usb has the bandwidth ,dts is usually 1510Kbps. Although out of all the audio codecs I've used the only way to passthrough audio has been through spdif (toslink or coax)and hdmi as I've seen.

Hdmi passthrough is only available for newer vid cards. Cant remember which ones. I use FFdshow audio codec at the moment.

Best bet is to grab an audio card with spdif unless someone can prove me wrong...

[gokifly]

i am using creative audigy 2 nx usb sound blaster and is working very well ...(optical out)
surround 5.1 through usb (dts, dolby digital)
correspondingly you can use usb sound blaster
cheers