Do I need to upgrade my soundcard?

[mhall_10]

I'm trying to improve the audio from the current computer speaker setup.

The plan is to connect an RCA cable to an old Panasonic SA-HE100 AV receiver and two Klipsch Reference IV RB61 Bookshelf speakers and possibly a Velodyne spl-1000 subwoofer.

The question is: Do I need to upgrade my soundcard(Sound-Blaster x-fi extreme audio)? This is the soundcard which automatically came with the HP desktop computer. Not sure if this will improve the sound quality or if the receiver will take care of it. All of my audio files are full .wav files and not compressed.

Thanks for any help in advance. I could not find a section that seemed to fit this subject so if I missed it I apologize.

 

[GranteedEV]

The question is: Do I need to upgrade my soundcard(Sound-Blaster x-fi extreme audio)? This is the soundcard which automatically came with the HP desktop computer. Not sure if this will improve the sound quality or if the receiver will take care of it. All of my audio files are full .wav files and not compressed.

That depends on whether the soundcard transmits analog noise or not. If yes, then you need to get a digital firewire or USB soundcard. Otherwise don't bother.

As far as a receiver, the panasonic may or may not have adequate SQ. If it seems to struggle, especially at low volumes, I would recommend something else, like the SMSL SA-50.

BTW Do you already have the klipsch and velodyne?

 

[mhall_10]

Yes, I already have all the speakers and receiver. They aren't being used now so thought I could try to improve music played on the computer in the home office. The panasonic drives the speakers much better than expected.

I gave it a try and the audio from the right speaker is good, the left is distorted, low volume, and muddy. If I turn up the volume it gets louder in the left, more tinny and still with distortion. Not sure why. The left sounds fine when I play an mp3 player or use the tuner. I've eliminated the cable as a cause also(plays fine with mp3).

 

[connieflyer]

ASUS Xonar Essence ST/STX soundcards | Stereophile.com

Iam using Sennheiser HD 380 pro headphones, AVR510 amp and Electro Voice EV-5 speakers with my computer. This is all just for my computer setup. I may run connection to my main system soon. This is the card I changed to from a creative one. It is really quite a good card, very quiet, from review ...........On the card's exterior is a vertical array of jacks. From top to bottom, on gold-plated RCAs, are the right and left analog line outputs, followed by the headphone output on a ¼" stereo phone jack. Below that, another ¼" stereo jack serves as both the line and microphone inputs, these selectable with the supplied Xonar Audio Center software. At the bottom is an RCA jack that provides a standard S/PDIF digital output capable of running at sample rates up to 192kHz. An optical S/PDIF driver is placed at the interior end of the jack, so that a TosLink cable can be used with an adapter, if that is preferred. There is no digital input.

The bottom section of the multilayer card carries the analog input circuitry, this based on a pair of R4580 low-noise dual–op-amp chips, followed by a pair of 5532 dual op-amps. These feed a Cirrus Logic CS5381, a 24-bit A/D converter chip capable of operating at sample rates up to 192kHz and offering a S/N ratio of 110dB. At the bottom right of the card are two ASUS-branded LSI chips that do all the audio data processing, including Dolby Digital decoding, Dolby Headphone and Dolby Virtual Speaker processing, and Dolby Pro-Logic II, as well as volume and various reverberation and equalizer functions. Above the larger chip is the power-supply section, featuring multiple voltage-regulator chips, a large number of Nichicon Fine Gold electrolytic capacitors, and two purple Sanyo OsCon caps. As well as the attention paid to the power supply, ASUS makes much of what they call "Hyper-grounding," which minimizes noise that might degrade the analog output signal.