If your amp does not have an HDMI input, only optical, digital etc, what is the best configuration to at least get 5.1 sound? Line out from the PC will on provide 2 channels (pls correct me if I am wrong). Is the option to obtain a sound card with more output alternatives? Also, does the graphics card also carry sound for a eg music video?
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PC to Amp Sound Options
- Thread starter Network1
- Start date
hmmm... best bet is a sound card with optical out. get a fiber and connect them lossless. Only gfx cards with HDMI out could possibly (not all do) carry audio (but you still have to connect aux out pins from your audio card/ mobo inside the PC "to feed the gfx card sound". It then goes over HDMI with the video.
Tinuva
The Magician
If your amp doesn't support HDMI, unless it was expensive there is also a good chance it only does 5.1 via SPD/IF in either coax or optical format.
Sadly I have one of these, and I had to settle for using optical spd/if cable. The amp can do only stereo with the analog connecters, most pc sound cards nowadays can do up to 7.1 analog so the limitation is with the amp usually.
Sadly I have one of these, and I had to settle for using optical spd/if cable. The amp can do only stereo with the analog connecters, most pc sound cards nowadays can do up to 7.1 analog so the limitation is with the amp usually.
Mier
Expert Member
Only patially true. Your statement applies to most Geforce cards. However many ATI based gfx cards with HDMI ports, have an actual sound processor on them. Therefore there is no need to feed sound to the gfx card from another source.
davemc
Executive Member
For this to be true, it would imply that the game you are running must transmit sound through the graphics card's on-board sound card, or perhaps the Video Card drivers duplicate the sound through the video card on-board sound card.
Berry interesting indeed.
Mier
Expert Member
I have a Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 4550 gfx card in my HTPC. When you install the card, it also detects and installs an additional audio device on the system. This audio device is available and selectable just like any other dedicated or on-board sound card. The sound is sent together with the video via the HDMI port.
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2925#ov
However, this doesn't really solve the problem of the OP. To output video via HDMI and seperately multi-channel audio, a dedicated sound card is probably needed. I think the Asus xonar card would do nicely
davemc
Executive Member
Thanks for that info Mier.
I have a Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 4550 gfx card in my HTPC. When you install the card, it also detects and installs an additional audio device on the system. This audio device is available and selectable just like any other dedicated or on-board sound card. The sound is sent together with the video via the HDMI port.
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2925#ov
However, this doesn't really solve the problem of the OP. To output video via HDMI and seperately multi-channel audio, a dedicated sound card is probably needed. I think the Asus xonar card would do nicely
I have an ATI Radeon HD 5670 gfx card. But, as you have said, though it will carry sound, I do not have a HDMI on my amp (JVC RX-5022V). Since it has digital and optical inputs - one of those I will use. At most it has 5.1 channels. My assumption is then to have a 7.1 sound card will not be appropriate??? Pls advice!
davemc
Executive Member
I have only dealt with two 7.1 sound cards, but they both scale down to 5.1 easily.
Just make sure that the sound-card that you do buy has enough output channels with the right type of connectors that you need.
I did try to get the digital channel working on the one sound-card, but my amp (JVC) did not seem to be able to understand what the card was saying.
Just make sure that the sound-card that you do buy has enough output channels with the right type of connectors that you need.
I did try to get the digital channel working on the one sound-card, but my amp (JVC) did not seem to be able to understand what the card was saying.
The cards advertised at Chaos jumps from R249 to R949 and upwards. Would I for example, really experience a quality difference of R700 between these cards, all other things being equal?
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davemc
Executive Member
That sir, is a very good question.
You'll have to scour the internet for unbaised reviews of the product and make up your own mind.
I did find that the more expensive cards are extremely successful at totally removing motherboard noises from the sound, but then again, the one that did not only cost R95, and like I said, I only tried two.
Dimpie (JIGSAW)
Honorary Master
The Callisto Home Theatre Adapter looks very interesting - did a quick search - don't seem to find one. What would be the cost?
Tinuva
The Magician
This depends on a lot of things, however with certain things you just won't notice this at all. Lets say you use spd/if, optical or coax, since its a digital signal, and the DACs on the soundcard are bypassed in this mode, there will be absolutely zero difference sound wise, zero difference in quality, since the AMP will be doing the decoding from digital to analog.
If you however use analog cables to pass the sound from the soundcard to the amp, things change completely, the DACs on the soundcard become important for quality of the sound ect.
So it really depends on how you will be using it, my guess is you will be using spd/if, thus the only thing you should be interested in is whether the card you buy can do that or not, and generally speaking the PC doesn't cause interference when the sound is still digital.
I googled some cards and also the spd/if interface. On Wikipedia it states the following:
S/PDIF lacks flow control and retry facilities, which limits its usefulness in applications outside of synchronous playback.
Because the receiver cannot control the data rate, it instead has to avoid bit slip by synchronising its conversion with the source clock. This means that S/PDIF cannot fully decouple the final signal from influence by the analogue characteristics of the source or the interconnect, even though the digital audio data can normally be transmitted without loss. The source clock may carry inherent jitter or wander, and noise or distortion introduced in the data cable may further influence the process of clock recovery.[3][4][5]. If the DAC does not have a stable clock reference then noise will be introduced into the resulting analogue signal. However, receivers can implement various strategies which limit this influence[5][6].
TOSLINK cables do not work well (and may even suffer permanent damage) if tightly bent or squashed by, say, a misplaced foot, and their high light-signal attenuation limits their effective range to 6.1 metres (20 ft) or so. On the other hand, TOSLINK cables are not susceptible to ground loops and RF interference, as coaxial cables are.
Should the above be of concern??
Tinuva
The Magician
I don't know how many people even notice the above.
The sync problem I can understand, usually you bypass that by processing the audio 1st then send it via SPD/IF, few cards can do that, but they are expensive. Generally speaking you looking for a card that can do DDL (Dolby Digital Live), expect to pay around R2000 for these.
Me personally ignored that, and instead use a setting in XBMC where the video gets synced to the sound, thus I never notice any problems, except that I now need a better video card, specifically a NVidia card since I run XBMC on Linux, thus the only way I will get video acceleration via VDPAU. On windows this is a non-issue since XBMC can use DXVA on most cards I think as long as you have a directx 9+ card but I am speaking under correction.
The sync problem I can understand, usually you bypass that by processing the audio 1st then send it via SPD/IF, few cards can do that, but they are expensive. Generally speaking you looking for a card that can do DDL (Dolby Digital Live), expect to pay around R2000 for these.
Me personally ignored that, and instead use a setting in XBMC where the video gets synced to the sound, thus I never notice any problems, except that I now need a better video card, specifically a NVidia card since I run XBMC on Linux, thus the only way I will get video acceleration via VDPAU. On windows this is a non-issue since XBMC can use DXVA on most cards I think as long as you have a directx 9+ card but I am speaking under correction.
Very interesting - will continue assimilating these perspectives - going away on holiday tomorrow - back in a couple of days time.