Best audio from laptop to stereo help

[agarwalro]

All this convo is absolutely has bearing what so ever to original OP's question - is HDMI is best way to connect HIS PC to HIS Yamaha receiver and the answer is simple YES. HDMI allows best possible digital signal to be passed to excellent audio processors inside OP's yamaha receiver.

+1 on this.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I mentioned way back the 3.5 was useless/unservicable...not the tech. But any on-board DAC can bettered by a quality external DAC.
As to the original post, I said adding RC would be a benefit to the HDMI out. No room is perfect.
Most certainly, the speakers are the most important part of a system.
But your economics are off. In today's dollar, $200 spent on a pair of speakers, or even $200/ea is not providing much in upgraded sound.
Its been 40 years, give or take, since I auditioned a pair of speakers at $200/ea I thought were worth buying.
Today, its more like $500~700/ea, minimum, to get something worth keeping.
The XOs I built 12 years ago cost almost that much alone.
But no matter what speakers are being used, Dirac RC can improve the sound.

Lets agree to disagree on all of your points.
As for $200 speakers - you owe to yourself to listen to WaveCrest HLV-1

 

[mr sarnoff]

While I would agree a modest external DAC might be OK if can not othewise use the analog outs or HDMI from your laptop otherwise just use those for what U are streaming and maybe HDMI even if U graduate to something decent beyond Pandora and Spotify .

TBH 320bps Premuim Spotify and close to that with Pandora are nothing to write home about or even be listening to outside of a phone or PDP outside or in a noisy car .BTW the free stuff they both have is a little more than half of that bandwidth and I woulden't listen to that on anything .

If you dont use HDMI to your AVR which is fine :
The cheapest USB DAC you can find like below will be all you need there with Pandora and Spotify U cant make a lossless digital silk purse out a a lossey digital sow


Do urself a favor and get with Dezer premuim or more like Tidal High FI 16/44 2441 kbps lossless streaming then come back and talk about upgrades beyond a $ 29.00
Behringer UCA202 Audio Interface You can find that are just fine for mp3 /AAC and uniform loudness compressed CD's on a mid fi AVR

Sent from Windows 10 Pro Insider Preview Evaluation copy Build 10162