I prefer to use USB speakers and headphones e.g. with my gaming laptops for the reasons you mention... but sometimes there seems to be some kind of odd issue at least in Windows with the volume settings of USB audio devices, where it goes straight from silent to VERY LOUD when you raise the volume level just a little.

I haven't quite figured out why that is, I recall in the past seeing even some third-party piece of software or driver which was supposed to tackle this problem on Windows PCs.

That is weird, I'm thinking at some kind of driver issue/setting.
Maybe the driver is not properly seeing your monitor as a audio-capable device, If you want to continue to troubleshoot this, you can try to hook up a TV to your HDMI or DP, that way your driver should see an audio capable device connected to one of its ports and you should ear sound.

Well, for now it is oke the way it is presented. Tomorrow the show continues if the optical cable arrives.....

thanks for the input so far, when searching around on the internet i did come across some manuals written by people who also use the gpu port to power speakers, didn't have the time to read through but if i do and there is some change i'll be sure to write a report ;-)

Let me give you some advice: Don't use an optical cable.

The S/PDIF standard which defines these cables stretches back to the time when CDs where new. And that's what they were designed for. To transfer CD music (44100 Hz, 16 Bit, 2 channels) from the CD player to the receiver. They are not capable of transporting modern requirements (my receiver supports up to 192000 Hz, 24 Bit, 8 channels).

So unless you only have a stereo setup and don't care about higher sample rates you don't want that. If you own a 5.1 setup and want to listen to high definition content (e.g. Bluray movies with DTS HD MASTER AUDIO) you want to go the HDMI route.

For troubleshooting try the following:

*) Make sure you have the latest version of Windows. I remember hearing there was a bug in some versions of Windows 10 that interfered with audio over Displayport/HDMI.

*) Check the cable. Sadly not all cables have the same bandwidth. The bandwidth depends on the HDMI/Displayport standard version the cables were produced for and some standard versions even allow for different cable bandwidths. Not every cable has enough bandwidth for high resolutions + audio. You need to make sure you are using a cable that has enough bandwidth to support your resolution of choice with audio. And of course that the HDMI/Displayport version your GPU and your monitor use is capable of using it as well.

*) According to your pictures the NVidia driver sees your equipment as audio capable. That is a good sign but is that device set as default sound output device in the Windows Sound Settings? That's something you really need to check. Especially if you have more than one audio output device (which most people do since most motherboards come with an audio chipset). Windows 10 just loves to change the default device for no reason at all. The only way I have found to prevent that is to disable all devices I do not regularly use.

*) Actually try a HDMI cable. I've had a look at the pictures you posted. Sound3 shows that you have connected your equipment to a Displayport connector. If everything works as it should it should not make a difference but I have already heard reports of audio trouble with Displayport on a system with no trouble using HDMI.


I've been using the NVidia audio driver connected to a 5.1 setup for many years now and I am very happy with it. I hope you get your setup running as well.

Optical cables (and coaxial / SPDIF) support up to DTS / Dolby Digital. Most movies don't even make good use of those old standards, let alone the newer ones.
It actually doesn't mean anything, necessarily. I can record sound on my 2001 mobile phone and encode it in 24 bit 192 kHz - that doesn't mean it will magically start to sound better.

I have no experience with games in surround. It seems to be a vague subject. How many games list their channel output and bitrate? (and like I said before, bitrate output doesn't say anything about recording/encoding quality)

His setup going to need a bit more troubleshooting/setting up: he's using DP to connect his monitor, implies that he has to use another DP converted to HDM or another HDMI port to connect to the soundbar, then everything needs to be set up in the driver/Windows.

The first thing to do is to try the HDMI alone hooked to an audio-capable display just to chalk off eventual problems problems.
I'm using diplayport converted to HDMI to send sound to my receiver, tho, unless nvidia does a really crappy job with it's ports/software there should be no problem, but I'm on AMD so I don't know how things are over there.

My setup is a bit weird because is basically the opposite with complications compared to the norm.

I was hoping this thread about about audio server stacks, so I could do something like suggesting an upgrade to Pipewire.

The static noise seems now to be the biggest concern....

With the usb headphones all sound is crystal clear

through the soundbar there is some noise distortion running on the background with most applications,

the static noise remains if i use the motherboard sound output or the dedicated soundcard output

With the previous t20 setup i'm almost sure there was no such thing as static background noise or less audible....

Changing the cable used for the t20 to connect to the pc did not change the outcome

Playing music does seem to trigger the noise, but not with all tracks

Playing games most of the time seems to initiate the background static noise too

Windows sounds and movies through netflix or yo0utube do sound crystal clear

i'm running nuts here!!

Welcome to the world of analogue audio :). As I mentioned before, your signal can be affected by many types of EM interference - and guess what high-performance computer parts typically generate...

You could try a shielded audio cable, I guess, but then again the interference may be affecting your amp output circuitry and not the cable itself. Could also be electrical noise rippling back to the power supply from one of your high-power components, like the GPU.

Why not go all digital, if you can? I still have a pair of high quality audio headsets that use a standard 3.5mm jack, but the cable is shielded, so I've never had issues. But if I run them through an unshielded audio extension cable... you don't want to know...

P.S.: Though it's unlikely, annoying static can also be generated by some drivers cutting off the sound card's grounding and output when the overall sound level drops close to 0 for a number of seconds. This is marketed as a power saving measure, but it can turn your audio cable from a signal pathway into an interference antenna.

Guess what surrounds the AE-5's components. ;-)

The cable would be easy to check (replace). I've never experienced it myself... and I have a shitload of analog audio cable spaghetti in my music studio.

Interference with some (software) sound sources and not with others; that sounds like a software problem to me.
This might be worth checking out: https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/solving-dpc-latency-issues/
Also: try setting the power plan to high performance.

But my guess: if the issue wasn't there with the old speakers - there something wrong with the soundbar (or if there's no static when digitally connected, with its analog input part.

It is correct that S/PDIF supports DTS and Dolby Digital but the only reason the bandwidth is sufficient for that is that these formats use lossy compression similar to MP3. If you have music that is already encoded in these formats (or a movie that contains audio in these formats) you can configure any decent media player to simply bitstream the data to the receiver and the receiver decodes that and generates the 5.1 channels.

But any other output no matter if it is music, movies or games will only ever be stereo with S/PDIF unless the software can encode to DTS or Dolby Digital on the fly. While theoretically possible I have never seen software that does so. So if you do have a 5.1 setup you really don't want S/PDIF.

Of course sound quality also depends on the quality of the input. No matter how good the setup an ancient MP3 in 128kbit will not magically improve. But you can definitely hear the difference with high bitrate MP3 or even better with formats using lossless or no compression like FLAC, WAV, Dolby TruHD, DTS HD MA, etc. Of course also with games since the computer generates the sound uncompressed.

If you think otherwise one of the following must be true:

1) You have a really crappy setup that can't give you good quality audio no matter the quality of the input.
2) You have never listened to music from good inputs (e.g. music BluRays encoded in DTS HD MA from the source).
3) You are slowly getting into the age where you would need a hearing aid. ;-)

Isn't that what Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect do?

That's what I was trying to say. There are plenty of Blurays (especially older, less popular movies) that contain audio, while e.g. in DTS HD format, that doesn't sound that much better than slightly compressed stereo.
(not audio related) I have DVDs that look like they're direct transfers from VHS (and they probably are).

I'm currently re-ripping my music CD collection to FLAC. For some, it's a clear improvement - for others, not so much. I think my Audioengine A5+ speakers are good quality and produce a very detailed sound. (the latter isn't always possitive, depending on the specific music... but I'm getting more used to it)
(when I originally ripped a lot of them to 192/320kbps (mid 2000s), hard drive space was a lot more expensive than it is now)

PS. Not all games contain lossless or uncompressed audio. Sometimes sounds were even compressed at the source (lossy), like when DCC or Minidisc devices were used for recording.

I totally agree with you on S/PDIF but if OP doesn't want to/can't use HDMI or DP then the only sensible choice is that especially since he is having issues with AUX.

yea, i was thinking, someone made a comment about using a high quality aux cable, maybe that could have done with the distortion too...

The optical cable just arrived and goodbye are all of the interference noises, one happy guy again, paid 20 euro for some so called protected grounded one meter long optical cable.... noticed aux cables going for about the same price, now i'm curious if such a cable would have had a similar response