Playing music from your PC to Home Theatre without losing Quality

[Assaf09]

Hey Everyone,

I am looking to purchase a pair of Klipsch RF82's with the center channel and a velodyne 12" sub for my basement. This set-up will be mainly 80% music 20% blu-ray movies.... My question is how can I play music from my PC to the 3.1 Speaker set-up i'm going to have.

I plan on ripping my music from cd's to my computer for best quality (apple losless or WAV, whichever.) .... I don't have a digital optical port or a S PDIF port, but i do have an hdmi port on the lappy. It also has bluetooth.

Here is my computer and amp, any help would be great! Thanks...

PC: http://www.lge.com/ca_en/computer-products/notebooks/LG-r400-R460-L.AHC6WA9.jsp

AMP: http://www.yamaha.com/yec/products/productdetail.html?CNTID=5028502&CTID=5000400&ATRID=1020&DETYP=ATTRIBUTE

 

[oppman99]

If your laptop can send audio over hdmi and your reciever can decode it, that would be the least expensive route. Sound quality should be fine. If that doesn't work, you have other options. I use a USB DAC. Many people are very happy using the logitech squeezebox or Apple airport express/apple TV. You may want to look into a program that is better than Windows Media player. Check out Winamp, Media Monkey and Foobar. From what I have heard, Foobar is the best quality wise, but is not very user friendly. I have a friend who loves Media Monkey. I use Winamp because it is free and easy to use. I don't notice any issues with SQ either.

 

[georgeMac]

I have the same setup (well close) and the HDMI cable provides fantastic quality and is obviously nice and simple.

 

[sholling]

I have no clue if your laptop can send audio over HDMI. If not I would look for an external sound card that has a digital output for your receiver. I use an inexpensive dedicated desktop for that job.

 

[ljaggers]

I just had the revelation of a lifetime yesterday. My Macbook can send optical digital audio signal through the 3.5mm port. It blew my mind. I looked at your specs and didn't see anything about that – but the info was limited. You might want to look at the manual and see if your computer has this capability. I know of some HP laptops that do this as well.

If this is the case with your computer, I would consider this a viable option.

 

[Assaf09]

So i guess it comes down to HDMI cable or Squeezebox Duet....
Does anyone have experience with one? Is it worth the $350 it goes for on eBay?? ...

 

[corey]

I use an Xbox 360 to play all of my music. Just put on your home network and point it at the system that has your ripped music.

 

[Transmaniacon]

The Apple Airport Express has that unique 3.5mm jack that also sends digital optical out. For $99, I think this is one of the easiest solutions. Just plug it in near the A/V Receiver, and run a cable from your airport to the optical input on the receiver. I have this same setup at home and it works great.

I only recently realized the airport has digital output, and have ordered a cable thats on its way from monoprice. This is nice because unlike a DAC or cable, you can have the computer in a remote location and still be able to play music. With a laptop, this might not be as much of a problem, but this lets me enjoy my music from my desktop in the bedroom, on the stereo in the living room.

 

[highfigh]

So i guess it comes down to HDMI cable or Squeezebox Duet....
Does anyone have experience with one? Is it worth the $350 it goes for on eBay?? ...

I would use an Apple Airport Express long before I spent $350 on anything. The wireless aspect is one plus and the TosLink output is another. If you want to use it in more than one place and the other system doesn't have a TosLink input, the 3.5mm jack is also a stereo analog output.

 

[Assaf09]

Great! I appreciate all the input so far.
I've been doing my research and people are saying audio quality out of the squeezebox is better than audio out from AE....

1) AE = $100 and SB = $300
is there a $200 difference in audio quality?

2) Are there any products that someone can post a link to between the two price ranges ($200) to stream audio from my pc to speakers with better audio quality than AE? ... if not, I think i'll choose the Airport Express Route and maybe one day eventually upgrade to Squeezebox.

 

[highfigh]

Great! I appreciate all the input so far.
I've been doing my research and people are saying audio quality out of the squeezebox is better than audio out from AE....

1) AE = $100 and SB = $300
is there a $200 difference in audio quality?

2) Are there any products that someone can post a link to between the two price ranges ($200) to stream audio from my pc to speakers with better audio quality than AE? ... if not, I think i'll choose the Airport Express Route and maybe one day eventually upgrade to Squeezebox.

Shouldn't be any difference- it stays digital and there's no conversion so the Express isn't affecting it, just passing it along. I used two of them in a house with a stereo receiver for the whole-house audio and another for the iTunes in the family room system. The Family room uses an optical cable and the whole-house has a 3.5mm-RCA Y cord to the analog input and it sounds good. I don't like his speakers in the living room but the iTunes sounds about as good as anything else.