Windows 7 Realtek "Digital" Output

Go to Control Panel>>> Sound>>> Playback Tab and set "Speakers" as default.

Redheart said:

Digital Output sounds like something that should be digital, right? My question about Realtek Digital output is, does it rely on speakers? Because it really sounds like something that shouldn't. When I saw that this computer has Digital Output, I assumed that means I don't need to have speakers plugged in to hear the sound. Was I just wrong or is there something wrong with this computer that the output isn't working?

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Digital output and sound are two different things. Digital output is an electrical signal. It provides a perfect copy of something on your computer to whatever device is connected. It is a way of passing a copy with no degradation.

If you store sound in an analog format, like a cassette tape, every time you make a copy, it is degraded. It is like making a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy; you lose something each time.

You can capture sound and turn it into an electrical signal or create electrical signals from scratch that can be converted to sound. From the time you first get it into electrical form, if you store it in a digital format, you can handle it as many times as you want without degrading it; it is always an exact copy. What makes a music player, like an iPod, digital is that it gets undegraded material in a digital format, essentially the same quality that is put on CDs for sale, and stores it that way.

If, at some point, you want to hear the material, it needs to be converted to sound, which you output with speakers or earphones. Once you convert it to sound, it is no longer digital.

As far as I understand, all sound systems rely on speakers, be it analog or digital. You can't just pick the sound "in the air", can you? You need to get it physical = audio waves, and that happens via speakers, and electricity.

Agree with both badrobot and Fixer.