TigerScent Posted January 8, 2013 Posted January 8, 2013 I have put together a super HTPC, based on an Asrock Z77..., with VirtueMVP etc..., rather good I must say, very impressed with the onboard sound quality - a far cry from what it used to be. The DVD's upscale and its looking pretty much as good as my Sony PS3 with regards to upscaling video, ....however --- I need to know how it is possible to use SACD and DVD-A and multichannel sound HiFi audio ... Im a bit new to this. FLAC sounds pretty good etc, but need to know about the multichannel element and how to incorporate it and play via HTPC... What about Blu-ray audio??? Anyone have any experience with HTPC multichannel sound?
DoggieHowser Posted January 8, 2013 Posted January 8, 2013 You should be able to get the PC to decode the multichannel soundtrack from DVDA and BD with the right software. There are some USB soundcards with multichannel analog outputs if your PC's internal soundcard doesn't do multichannel. I have some old ones from Creative. I think there's also this new "audiophile" one http://www.exasound.com/e18DAC/e18DACOverview.aspx The other alternative is to use HDMI output to send HD audio to an AVR or AV pre pro to decode. I believe Intel HD4000 can do this. But I am not aware of any that can do multichannel SACD/DSD decoding or output yet.
TigerScent Posted January 8, 2013 Author Posted January 8, 2013 (edited) You should be able to get the PC to decode the multichannel soundtrack from DVDA and BD with the right software. There are some USB soundcards with multichannel analog outputs if your PC's internal soundcard doesn't do multichannel. I have some old ones from Creative. I think there's also this new "audiophile" one http://www.exasound.com/e18DAC/e18DACOverview.aspx The other alternative is to use HDMI output to send HD audio to an AVR or AV pre pro to decode. I believe Intel HD4000 can do this. But I am not aware of any that can do multichannel SACD/DSD decoding or output yet. Apparantly 'foobar2000' can - from a PS3 player that supports SACD. Mine is a 80g version, but no SACD support that I can see. http://sourceforge.net/projects/sacddecoder/files/ Looks like its going to be DVD-A and HD-audio for now... Edited January 8, 2013 by TigerScent
DoggieHowser Posted January 9, 2013 Posted January 9, 2013 Apparantly 'foobar2000' can - from a PS3 player that supports SACD. Mine is a 80g version, but no SACD support that I can see. http://sourceforge.net/projects/sacddecoder/files/ Looks like its going to be DVD-A and HD-audio for now... I think when most of us refer to SACD/DSD decoding, we tend to refer to the DSD-analog direct conversion, ie not converted to PCM first. You can do this now for stereo DSD files with USB-DSD devices (Mytek, Playback, Benchmark 2, Chord etc) but not for multichannel yet.
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