Vantec NBA-200U external USB sound adapter unable to output 7.1 ANALOG audio from Nvidia Shield via Kodi
TL;DR: As title. The Vantec will NOT output 7.1 ANALOG audio from an Nvidia Shield TV / TV Pro using Kodi. It will output 5.1 audio via optical S/PDIF (Toslink). And it will play most 6.1 and 7.1 video files through that interface. You will probably even hear sound through your rear surrounds while playing those files, so you may think that you are actually getting 7.1 sound. But you're NOT, because optical S/PDIF is NOT capable of sending 7.1 audio due to bandwidth limitations on that interface (as everybody should know by now ). Most likely your receiver is doing some smart sound processing without you even realizing it. My receiver is old, and does NOT handle sound via HDMI. And I figured if I'm upgrading, why not move from 5.1 optical to 7.1? So I needed 7.1 ANALOG sound. The Vantec is supposed to do that by outputting 7.1 sound via four 3.5mm audio jacks. You use 3.5mm-to-RCA cables to connect these to the analog inpu...