Sound Strategy? Multiple outs. Windows/Realtek.
#1
Hello all,

I have been struggling for some months to figure out the best configuration in which to setup my sound on my living room Media Center KODI PC, which is the heart and soul of our families media experience. My hardware setup is perhaps a bit unusual:

Pretty standard AMD Quad CoreWindows 8.1 PC, 8gb Ram, with onboard Realtek sound, including optical/digital out and analog surround sound standard headphone jack connections.

From this, I am running out of my PC direct into a Visio Surround sound system via the Optical/Digital out.

I also own a Soundcast Wireless Audio transmitter and receiver, that is capable of taking the speaker output from the PC, and transmit that on along to the receiver positioned in my kitchen along with another set of speakers. This will let me duplicate the sound in two rooms, and it works really well, or at least it used to.

Now on to my problem. The trouble is, once I purchased the Visio Surround sound system for the living room, I am having trouble making use of my new surround sound system while maintaining the ability to still broadcast sound out to the kitchen via analog audio jacks. I can do it, but the sound to both destinations is not quite in sync

I also am the only tech savvy member of my family, so ideally, I'd like this all to work with as auto-magically as possible.

Strategies employed so far:

1) Initially, I used set Speaker outs as my default audio device Windows, and used the built in recorder function setting in Windows it to listen to the Stereo Mix. This doubled my output allowing me to at least hear audio from both sources(digital and speaker), though the quality I get from my surround sound system, is not nearly what it is when I run with just digital/optical out. In this method, I then set Speakers as default device in Kodi, but enabled SPDIF Digital out as pass-through device, which enabled Kodi to still make use of the digital outs during movies that had surround sound option. It works pretty good, though the audio is not really in sync in both rooms, which can be kind of annoying, and there is not a lot of consistency as far as the audio quality I get in Kodi, depending on what sort of video I am watching.

2) I run the digital out into the Visio sound bar, and I run the analog out of my PC into the Soundcast transmitter, which then also has an analog out which runs into my Visio sound bar. Using this method, I have to select the input option on my sound bar to be either Aux 2, or Digital input. Not really a big deal. If I am listening to music, I set it to Aux 2, and I am able to get synced up audio in both living room, and kitchen, which is pretty good. Not as good as if I were making use of the digital audio function on the sound bar, but it is acceptable, and it is in sync. When we want to watch a movie, I set the input to digital audio in on the sound bar, and we usually have sound, though not always.. Sometimes I still have to switch back to Aux 2 for lesser quality sound.

3) Really, I have only had success with options 1 and 2, though I have also tried using some software solutions like "virtual audio cable", though I was not able to get this working.

I am wondering if anyone else has anything remotely close to my setup, and/or if anyone has any suggestions for me. Kodi media center is a dream program with tons of flexibility and power, but it takes a lot of savvy at the same time to get what you want out of it. Any advice appreciated!!
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#2
Ha, so unfortunately no answers here -- however I do have a very similar setup. Basically I have speakers out on my deck I connect (via an AMP) to the analog audio out on the PC and an optical cable for the speakers in the room with the Kodi media center. I do believe there is a delay in the sound between the two if I stand where I can hear both speakers - I put it down to speed of sound via the wires (as the run out to the deck is long). However, in my case it does not really matter as generally you don't listen to both speaker sets at the same time.

My big issue is and has been for some time (Isengard did not fix it) is that after watching a movie, I can no longer listen to analog. It seems to be playing and windows shows sound in the monitor. However no sound comes out of the optical connection any more -- although it still works for the analog connection. If I switch to optical within Kodi I hear the sound again. I am suspecting issues with the windows mixer driver ... Kodi directions do say abandon all Realteck drivers!!! I may need to get a different AMP to fix my issue and have that split the sound to the different sets of speakers ...

If you abve seen this issue in your travels and figured out a solution let me know!
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Sound Strategy? Multiple outs. Windows/Realtek.0