louco73 Posted April 26, 2006 Posted April 26, 2006 I'm in the process of choosing bits and pieces to build a dedicated HTPC after messing around with my existing PCs enough to decide that a HTPC is the way forward for me. I was wondering if anyone is using sound card outputs straight to power amps, with all the sound processing done by the HTPC and sound card avoiding the need for an AVR? If so, how is the sound quality of this approach? Should I even consider it?
soundaudio Posted April 26, 2006 Posted April 26, 2006 You can try Onkyo SE-150PCI(7.1 Sound) or SE-90PCI(Stero Sound).Both are suitable for PCHT and Audio sound and better than Creative Soundblaster card.But not sure if can get in locally,you may try to contact local Onkyo agent.Check it out at Onkyo website http://www.jp.onkyo.com/wavio/150pci/index.htm http://www.jp.onkyo.com/wavio/
louco73 Posted April 26, 2006 Author Posted April 26, 2006 Did a quick google and someone mentioned it's availabe at Storage Studio. One of the few shops in Sim Lim that I think actually knows what they are talking about :). Still it would be good to hear if anyone is using such a card and if they think it's better than an AVR or not.
sonofdbn Posted April 26, 2006 Posted April 26, 2006 There used to be a huge thread on this at avsforum, and there are often some smaller threads. Take a look around there if you haven't already. I have an M-Audio Revolution, but never tried hooking it up directly to the power amp unfortunately.
Quest88 Posted April 30, 2006 Posted April 30, 2006 Here's my 2 cents. :) DAC is subjective, but shouldn't be poorer if spending the same dollar. More configuration options too! The issue is the wiring as most typical soundcard use miniplug out for analog. Also it tends to be very cramp (sockets all next to each other) so its hard to fit in your usual interconnects. Also, internal soundcard apparently subject to electrical noise from within casing more so than a typical DAC. Guess if it were external that would help.
Audio Posted April 30, 2006 Posted April 30, 2006 Totally agree with Quest. The minplug connections is really a bad way to do 7.1 channel audio. I believe most HTPC uses just the Toslink oiptical or the Digital Coaxial and use an external sound processor to decode. I predict in the near future, we can use iLink as well when the DVD playback software output through the Firewall socket. (Audio)
media2368 Posted April 30, 2006 Posted April 30, 2006 Onkyo SE-150PCI sound card don't accept mini plug. It only accept Toslink and RCA connection. :)
louco73 Posted June 23, 2006 Author Posted June 23, 2006 I ended up with the Xplosion 7.1 card that from Ciptura. I went to LHS to try and get the miniplug to 2 female RCAs, but given the restrictions on the size of the miniplug they are not able to build the appropriate cables. Therefore, I'm wondering if anyone has identified a quality cable that I can buy from a shop somewhere? I'm keen to see how this will sound going straight to my power-amps. I've already decided to retire my CD player and DVD recorder, so if I can retire my AVR as well I will only have a HTPC, SCV digital box and a DAC on the rack :).
louco73 Posted December 18, 2006 Author Posted December 18, 2006 Reviving this little thread. I finally got around to testing this yesterday. It worked! The guy in the cable store in Funan was able to create some cables that were thin enough to plug into the back of my Xplosion sound card. This enabled me to connect the cables that were in the pre-out section of my AVR to the sound card. The cables go directly to power amps. This means my connections for music, DVDs, downloaded files, TV, etc. were only HTPC->Power Amps->Speakers. After playing around with the sound card settings to make sure I had the cables connected correctly I downloaded the latest trial version of PowerDVD that has the Dolby Digital and DTS decoding built in. How does it sound? It sounded ok, but it didn't blow me away. I didn't get time to go back and compare. It takes too long without labeled cables ;). I tended to mix them up too easily. I'll get some labels and then do some more testing. I tried to use ZoomPlayer instead of PowerDVD, but I couldn't get the right filters to work to the same level as PowerDVD. I have not upgraded the opamps on the sound card, so that should make a difference too. Right now I need some other pairs of ears to help me compare. Any volunteers? :)
sonofdbn Posted December 18, 2006 Posted December 18, 2006 Good to see your efforts paying off. One concern I would have, which I read somewhere else, is whether I would trust any software to be the volume control. Is it possible that some glitch might send some speaker-busting signal to the power amp?
SiriuslyCold Posted December 18, 2006 Posted December 18, 2006 is this in anticipation of Vista's native room EQ? ;) the only downside is no SACDs ...speaker-busting signal to the power amp or merely the Windows error STOP wav file
louco73 Posted December 18, 2006 Author Posted December 18, 2006 Good to see your efforts paying off. One concern I would have, which I read somewhere else, is whether I would trust any software to be the volume control. Is it possible that some glitch might send some speaker-busting signal to the power amp? I am a bit concerned about this, but I've not experienced anything yet. I would also hope that Vista would have much better sound management than Windows 2000, that I'm using now. There seems to be no real master volume control that you can rely on in Win 2K. Vista is my target for this machine. I would love to use Linux, but I can't get drivers for the 7.1 of the Xplosion, only 2 channel.
louco73 Posted December 18, 2006 Author Posted December 18, 2006 is this in anticipation of Vista's native room EQ? ;) the only downside is no SACDs I hope that Vista will be able to do a much better job than my old AVR, but I'll have to do the tests when I get my hands on it. I only own one SACD, so I'm not that concerned :) My real reason for doing this is to simplify things. Why do I need a CD player, DVD recorder and AVR if a HTPC can do all of that and so much more!
Quest88 Posted December 19, 2006 Posted December 19, 2006 nice to see your venture going along well. i've used this method somewhat.. with 5.1 output, but to AVR instead. didn't sound good at all, which might be because of the interconnects. i eventually gave up on this method, so have 3x of those cables lying around now. actually, why can't we play SACD? i know we can play DVD-A for sure. hmmm..
SiriuslyCold Posted December 19, 2006 Posted December 19, 2006 Sony {didn't | don't want to} license any DVD-Rom manufacturers
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