Decided to get a Home audio receiver to use with PC, wich to get?

[ellover009]

Decided to get a Home audio receiver to use with PC, wich to get?
I ended up deciding on getting a normal home theather receiver and using it with my pc, question is wich to get?
My budget would be around $500 max.

 

[JonBaker99]

What are you going to be using for speakers? How are you going to be feeding sound to your receiver? What sound card are your currently or plan to be using?

This is a great way to do it. Same way I have mine setup. Just need some more info.

 

[jcPanny]

Receiver connections

Ellover,
Your best is to use a digital optical or coax connection for audio from the PC to the receiver. Make sure your PC sound card has this output, if not, upgrade. There are several good options in your price range from Yamaha, Denon, Pioneer, and others. As suggested, you should select the speakers first and then pick a receiver with the power and features you need.

 

[ellover009]

I have an x-fi platinum, just installed it last nite, I bought the special cable kit from creative labs that allows you to connect through analog so that you don't override the sound card and eax ver5
http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=16&product=14309
Thats the cable kit I bought.

I'm planning of using some sony speakers I have for now, they each run arounf 65watts each, this is good just to start then I'll get something nicer for speakers.

 

[jcPanny]

Receiver connections

Those analog line level connections should work great for playing 2 channel material from the PC or DVD-Audio disks, however, you will still want Digital Coax connection to the receiver for playing DVDs. The digital connection, your receiver will be able to perform the DSP decoding, D/A conversion, and Bass Management.

With the new receiver, your current speakers will definately be the weakest link. You might revise your budget for a $300 receiver (Yamaha HTR-5960) and $200 for a new pair of mains (Onix X-LS).

 

[mango]

I was looking to upgrade my computer sound card with one that would provide digital 5.1 out, but couldn't find one in any of the big box stores. The best you could get was stereo digital out. I thought it would be better to let the superior D/A converters of the amp convert the signal to analog.

 

[ellover009]

I was looking to upgrade my computer sound card with one that would provide digital 5.1 out, but couldn't find one in any of the big box stores. The best you could get was stereo digital out. I thought it would be better to let the superior D/A converters of the amp convert the signal to analog.

When you use the pc for video games it's best to allow the pc to do the decoding because when you loose EAX 5 you loose 5.1 placement. PC games rely on EAX, console video games rely on Dolby Digital so there would be no advantage of using dolby digital. So whenever you run a game directly to the receiver and not let the sound card to the work all you get is emulate 2.1 over 5.1 speaker set.