Audio from Computer

[Tornado11]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of wiring up my basement (slowly) with speakers, Internet connections and everything else. Since my computer room is also in the basement, I was wondering if it's possible to run a cable from the computer to my home theater system so i can use the speakers as an output for my computer.

My question is really in terms of what cable I would use to run in-wall to the stereo. People I've talked to say that the standard out from my sound card is an analog signal, and I would likely see drastic signal loss over the run of the cable. My thought is there must be some way to accomplish this task.... now I'm hoping some of the experts here can point me in the righ direction.

Thanks,

Dave

 

[Francious70]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1164887&CatId=107

Buy that and use the digital coax connection. For $25 I don't think you can go wrong.

Paul

 

[Tornado11]

Perfect thanks. I'll be ordering that and running some more wire ASAP. Would I be using just RG59 Co-ax? Or is there a specific cable type I should be using?

Thanks again,

Dave

 

[karltl]

Options for Audio from Computer and considerations of video as well

I just completed my basement, built a small office, additional bedroom, 3/4, computer workspace area for the kids and my home theater area.

I spent an enormous amount of time looking into numerous options/cost/performance etc and can offer you the info I came up with and what I ended up implementing..

Audio from your computer is analog (assuming you have a standard sound card and are using the analog/speaker output). It's possible to run this to your home theater system but here's a few of the catches...

Since the run is likely to be fairly long (20+ feet) you will likely pick up noise from other electrical stuff in the area. Long audio runs of line level audio (about what the computer sound card will send out) is generally done with XLR balanced lines. I dont know what the exact magic number for length is but have heard that runs longer than about 50 feet are better done with balanced lines. Your sound card is 99% sure NOT to have balanced outputs.

An option would be to use CAT5E ethernet cable. I've read numerous writeups from folks who have used this successfully for in-wall audio runs. I did this for 6 stereo pairs of line level feeds from my computer workspace over to the home theater system since I also have a small MIDI home studio and wanted to be able to route audio from the mixer over to the home theater system. So far, it seems to work just fine. The run length of these pairs is about 30 ft.

Here's what I did

My objective was to be able to route audio, digital video and digital still images to my home theater system as well as to run streaming internet radio stations to the home theater.

I ran CAT5E cable from a small closet in my basement (my network media server/network storage device closet) to all the rooms in the basement. I also ran lines over to the wall where the Home Theater equipment would be placed.

I used an ancient (7 year old, 333 mhz pc) as my media server/network storage device. This pc has Windows XP pro loaded on it, an ethernet nic card installed and a huge hard drive in it (160gig). The hard drive is partitioned into two sections...a C drive with the operating system and application programs on it and a D drive that is shared across the network. All PC's in the house, including my work laptop (via wireless card) and PDA via wireless) can access the server/network storage device. This is not really a "server" per se...just a big hard drive shared across the home network.

I store all media files on this shared PC hard drive and it runs all the time. For audio files, I took my entire CD collection, used CD creator to rip them all into high quality MP3 format's (224 bit, just below studio quality) and store them all on the network storage machine. Currently I have over 9 gig of MP3 songs out there (1370 songs at last count). I could use maximum bit depth for the MP3 files but higher bit depth sounded only marginally better than 224 and, in balance, keeping the file sizes smaller helps insure that I dont have data bandwidth problems trying to stream all of this stuff to the home theater system.

At the home theater system I got a box called a "PRISMIQ" network media adaptor. The machine cost's about $179 online, plugs directly into the ethernet port behind the home theater setup and links to the network storage device from which it can stream any/all of the MP3 files, or digital videl and still image files. It can also link to the internet via my router so you web surf on your TV (marginally usefull unless you get the $30 wireless keyboard for it). It is kind of handy however if I want to pull up instant local weather conditions, stock quotes etc.. via an internet link.

It has an ethernet input and audio and video outputs. Only stereo out's so you cant run actual 5.1 etc... surround audio but the sound quality is excellent, it was a simple device to install/setup and suffers from none of the limitations of many of the other network media adaptor devices on the market (you can read consumer revies for many of them on various web sites but most have comments about...various file format oncompatibilities, poor/shakey firm ware, limited number of songs that can be included in any playlist).

While there are other network media adaptors out there, some for as little as $60 retail, the PRISMIQ get's excellent reviews from both pro and comsumer alike. It's been money well spent, has worked flawlessly and was simple to install/setup. It also has a PCMCIA cardslot in the rear so you could plug a wireless netword card into it and link it to a sstorage device/PC through a wireless network.

If the walls in your basement are open, I would strongly recomend this route as it results in no audio degradation of the signal froim your PC and gives you the added bonus's of being able to stream Video and internet content to the home theater setup as well.

Give me a yell if you have specific technical questions and I'll be happy to help.

Karl

 

[Audioholics]

I might recommend running a digital coax line instead... Its very inexpensive to upgrade the sound card and then run a digital coax line in lieu of 6 stereo lines (probabaly cheaper too, since you eliminate the need for so much cabling).

I'm doing exactly that right now for Reference System 2, our new gaming/HT room.

 

[Tornado11]

Well 2 great suggestions so far. thanks to you both for some good feedback and ideas. I'll do some searching and see what I come up with.

Thanks,

Dave

 

[karltl]

When I ran the 6 stereo lines ( I actually only need 2...the extras were backups/possible expansion etc...) I just CAT5e cable, riser rated. Ran two lines which provide 8 twisted pair groups. I use one twisted pair as a pos/neg single audio chanell.

The beauty of using CAT5e is that it seems to work great and it's dirt cheap. I got a 500' reel of the stuff at Home Depot for under $25. Might not be audiophile but it might be better than you think.

My main point was....think beyond just running line level audio from you computer. Your computer can store, and stream, anything digital. Using tcp/ip (internet) protocal to move the data via a home network provides far more flexibility than a hard wired, line level send form your computer to the home theater system.

As an example, last night I had one of the kid's on their computer listening to an MP3 stream from the network storage device, at the same time I had my computer, in the office, ripping more cd's into MP3's and storing them on the same network storage device. While all this was going on I had Christmas home video tapes streaming to my home theater monitor. Keeping it digital throughout the network and doing final conversion at the final point of usage allows you total flexibility. You want to move the home theater system to a different wall (where you did'nt run a line level audio cable to..), the PRISMIQ, with a wireless network card, makes this a simple thing. Most importantly, the ability to move "media" data, to anyplace in the house, makes this the most flexible system I know of.

Thanks for a great forum! Much of what I've learned about this came from readings forums like this.

Karl

 

[RedneckHunter]

Hooking up a computer to a Home Theater can be a daunting task. I basically just built my own HTPC (Home Theater PC) using and old atk case (just the frame) and some 3/4 MDF. It is basically a bok that looks almost like a big *** speaker sitting in the audio rack. It has 12 HD's with over 1 TB of storage. Have that hooked to my Receiver using 3 of these Monster Interlink hooked to the 6 channel in and then out to the TV and the DLP Projector via svideo.

It basically stores everything, every single CD (180 GB of MP3's) that I have ever bought. Every movie that I have is all stored there. All this with a wireless mouse/keyboard and I never have to leave the Lazyboy.

My neighbors despise me.

 

[Audioholics]

Need analogue sound card output for games

One thing I neglected to mention - and this is important - is that if you want to play games on your HT system, you will most likely need to run 3 analogue stereo lines from sound card to your receiver's 5.1 inputs. Typically, games do not output 5.1 DD or DTS.

 

[RedneckHunter]

One thing I neglected to mention - and this is important - is that if you want to play games on your HT system, you will most likely need to run 3 analogue stereo lines from sound card to your receiver's 5.1 inputs. Typically, games do not output 5.1 DD or DTS.

Or if your souncard supports the digital/optical, then you can go that route. I just have a basic soundcard in my HTPC so I use 3 interconnects.

 

[Anhydrous]

I just used a "y-adapter($5 at wally world) from my sound card to my receiver.Only bad news is that i do get some humm....

 

[jbracing24]

Probably just a simple solution to my question, I have a Sony media center computer which has computer speakers plus subwoofer, but it also has a line out minijack that I want to connect to an AV receiver sitting two feet away. I have a cable with minijack on one end and RCA jacks on the other. What inputs will work on the receiver to get music from the computer to the AV? I can't seem to get any sound to go to the receiver.

 

[RedneckHunter]

I just used a "y-adapter($5 at wally world) from my sound card to my receiver.Only bad news is that i do get some humm....

That's what you get for using cheap cables. Made the same mistake and bought 3 good interconnects, no more hum.

 

[MDS]

Probably just a simple solution to my question, I have a Sony media center computer which has computer speakers plus subwoofer, but it also has a line out minijack that I want to connect to an AV receiver sitting two feet away. I have a cable with minijack on one end and RCA jacks on the other. What inputs will work on the receiver to get music from the computer to the AV? I can't seem to get any sound to go to the receiver.

That cable should work. Any analog audio input on the receiver will do: cd, tape, even the audio inputs of video1, video2, etc. I assume that line out jack is from the soundcard and thus is at line-level; if it is from the powered subwoofer, then it is amplified and will not work with the a/v receiver inputs.

Edit: Make sure the 1/8" mini jack on that cable is a stereo mini and not mono.

 

[Tornado11]

WOW!

I come back 1 week later and a whole bunch of posts. I ended up going with the sound card suggested in the initial post. I just got it in so I'll let you know how that goes. I did run Cat5 back to the HT system to ensure I have internet for my PS2 so if worst comes to worst I'll load up a little computer with MP3 files and run it stratight from there.

Thanks for all the advice!

Dave