Computer audio to a receiver

[zozoman]

Hello everyone,

I have a hopefully simple question about getting computer audio to a receiver. What I am trying to do is set up my room with a projector and with home theater speakers (They do not have to be the best. I plan to spend around 300-400 on them).

The problem I am having is that I do not know how I could have my sound from my PC hooked up to the receiver. I have read that I could use the SPDIF out (TOSLINK) from my Sound Blast x-fi card, but I am worried that may not be the most optimal solution. If I am to use SPDIF out will I be forced to keep changing the audio output format on my media player/ games every time I would want to use the projector or would it just "work" and I wouldn't have to change the output device every time?

I also had a different idea, what if I were to use Y splitter cables to my current speaker setup on my computer and just feed those to the receiver? Would that be better than the SPDIF out or would I lose quality or something?

If anyone has a different idea/solution please let me know, I would really appreciate it. Just as a refresher, I want to get sound from my PC to a receiver that sends it to the home theater speakers on my wall.

Thank you for your time,

-Alonzo

 

[highfigh]

S/PDIF is the best way to get the audio to the receiver. I would find out if you actually need to change anything on the sound card by setting it to S/PDIF and using the analog mini jack to your current speakers. If it works, leave that configuration and use what's needed at the time.

 

[Adam]

Welcome to the forum, Alonzo!

For audio encoded in surround sound formats that your receiver can decode (e.g. Dolby Digital, DTS), then I agree with highfigh - SPDIF is a good way to go.

If you are wanting to send audio from games, then it might not be. I haven't kept up with the latest soundcards, so I don't know if they can work their built-in audio decoding for some of the game soundtracks and output it through SPDIF without any losses. I bring it up as something to look into if you are wanting to use this set-up for games.

 

[zozoman]

Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. I currently do not have the receiver, speakers, or projector yet. I am still trying to work out all possible problems before I put money into it. I figured I would have to use SPDIF and I doubt I would have many issues, I just wanted to double check with some experts. For the game issue, that is not a big deal, I was just wondering. I plan to just watch movies on it.

This is what it looks like in my options.

h ttp://img75.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spdifia3.jpg ( I had to put a space after the h because I do not have enough posts yet)

It seems that I have the option to make SPDIF my default source for output, so maybe that would just make it "work".

 

[businessjeff]

the digital out I would think would make sense to bypass the sound card all together. So it would seem you would have 2 devices to chose from in sound properties.

But that may not be how its working, just hook it up and see what it does and go from there.

 

[Djizasse]

I don't understand why do you want to use the Y cable. You should connect the PC to the receiver and the receiver to the speakers and the projector.

With any sound card, you have the possibility to send SPDIF signals untouched, so, if you're watching a DVD the encoded multichannel sound will go to the receiver to be decoded and be sent to all the speakers.

The only problem is when you're playing games with multichannel sound, this time the signal will go to the receiver, but only containing the left and right channels. This is because the computer is not encoding the sound in realtime. To get around this you can choose 2 paths:
- connect 3 more cables from the analog outputs in the sound card to the multichannel analog inputs in the receiver. You'll have to get a receiver with multichannel analog inputs.
- get a sound card with DDL (Dolby Digital Live), this feature encodes the sound and passes it to the receiver with a single SPDIF cable or optical out. The X-Fi series support this feature, see if your card is supported and if so you'll have to activate the DDL feature ($5 if I remember right).

I'm using DDL and prefer it to the multichannel options due to less cable clutter and my receiver not using bass management on the multichannel inputs.

 

[businessjeff]

Your saying that you have to use your 5.1 channels out on the sound card to the receiver, along with the SPDIF to carry the encoding? Thats such a dumb way to do it... Why cant it encode a signal as its going out? Isnt that the point?
Its encoding realtime while doing it using the SPDIF out, there must be a better way, but as for now im going to sleep.

 

[MDS]

Your saying that you have to use your 5.1 channels out on the sound card to the receiver, along with the SPDIF to carry the encoding? Thats such a dumb way to do it... Why cant it encode a signal as its going out? Isnt that the point?

Any audio that originates on your computer is already digital, whether it is MP3, WMA, uncompressed PCM or what have you. The issue is the capabilities of the sound card.

If the sound card can support 'bitstream'; ie pass the bits untouched, then the digital out can be used to send DD/DTS to a receiver to be decoded. If not, it may decode and downmix DD/DTS to 2 channel PCM and that can also be sent over the digital out (s/pdif defines the format of the data and the protocol used to send that data over a physical connection, whether it is coax (electrical) or toslink (optical).

The sound card cannot send multi-channel PCM over s/pdif (bandwith requirements too great) but if it can recognize the format and decode it to individual channels you can use the analog outs to send each channel to a receiver. If the sound card will not send a bitstream for DD/DTS then you would again have to use analog outs because the sound card would do the decoding to individual channels.