Is it worth buying an expensive sound card if i have a receiver ?

[ungovernable]

Well title says it all..

I have expensive Energy CF-70 home theater with an onkyo TX-NR609 receiver i will be using on my new HTPC, currently using onboard Realtek audio with OPTICAL OUT....

So now i'm wondering if it makes a difference if i buy a more expensive sound card, and still use optical output to my receiver.... After all, Optical is digital so would an expensive sound card really increase the quality of the digital optical output ?

 

[erly_Cuylers]

Well title says it all..

I have expensive Energy CF-70 home theater with an onkyo TX-NR609 receiver i will be using on my new HTPC, currently using onboard Realtek audio with OPTICAL OUT....

So now i'm wondering if it makes a difference if i buy a more expensive sound card, and still use optical output to my receiver.... After all, Optical is digital so would an expensive sound card really increase the quality of the digital optical output ?

I think what you are asking is "will I get better Digital output with a sound card SPIDF then I will with on board audio SPDIF" it has been my recent experience that Digital SPDIF from a sound card is more robust then the on board Digital SPDIF. I have read, that in fact, the sound card especially it's sound chip processes the Digital output and therefor is "better" then onboard. the difference is not going to be night and day, but IMHO certainly more solid.

erl

 

[nagol567]

How do you define professional speaker system? Read the data sheet and specification of the speaker you are interested.... Then you will know

my dad has been in the high end sterio business for 25 years. We laugh at ppl that think bose is high-fi. It simply isnt. if you want to take a step into the high-fi sterio world get a nice tube amp like such: http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/amplifiers/onix-melody-sp3-tube-integrated-amplifier-review.

 

[gamerk316]

I think what you are asking is "will I get better Digital output with a sound card SPIDF then I will with on board audio SPDIF" it has been my recent experience that Digital SPDIF from a sound card is more robust then the on board Digital SPDIF. I have read, that in fact, the sound card especially it's sound chip processes the Digital output and therefor is "better" then onboard. the difference is not going to be night and day, but IMHO certainly more solid.

erl

Not really though; the source is digital, and SPDIF is digital. Granted, the soundcard will do some post-processing on the signal, but there won't be any significant changes made to the output. The biggest advantage a soundcard gives when using SPDIF is encoding support to Dolby/DTS formats [needed for 5.1 output over SPDIF].

As for using digital or analog, at some point, your digital source will need to be converted to analog. Its best to do this only once [as most Analog to Digital converters stink], and only by the piece of equipment with the best Digital to Analog converter, usually a soundcard or receiver.

 

[leon2006]

my dad has been in the high end sterio business for 25 years. We laugh at ppl that think bose is high-fi. It simply isnt. if you want to take a step into the high-fi sterio world get a nice tube amp like such: http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/amplifiers/onix-melody-sp3-tube-integrated-amplifier-review.

Your Dad?

 

[MagicPants]

Just my 3 cents, but if you want to hook a PC up to a receiver, you want one of two things, both of which are not standard.

1) A video card with an HDMI plug. This has the advantage of letting you watch movies from your computer with 7.1 The downsides are that you have to pass the video through your receiver which could add some latency, and that the fastest video cards usually only support dvi.

2) A receiver that has a multichannel input. This has the advantage of letting your receiver work with just about any soundcard or onboard sound. But you probably won't get 7.1 from your movies (thank Hollywood's DRM for that.) Analogue 7.1 has the potential to sound the best, but you need good cables and shielding.