Sound card for Home theatre

[Steel111]

I am thinking of getting Asus Xonar D2X Sound Card for razer tiamat 7.1 headphones. But I also have LG bh9530 home theatre, and I am not sure how to connect the analog outputs of the sound card into the home theatre. Do such home theatres require sound cards at all? Right now I am using a 3.5mm to 2x 2.5mm converter and feeding sound from my motherboard's sound card into the home theatre.

Please advise

 

[genz]

I am thinking of getting Asus Xonar D2X Sound Card for razer tiamat 7.1 headphones. But I also have LG bh9530 home theatre, and I am not sure how to connect the analog outputs of the sound card into the home theatre. Do such home theatres require sound cards at all? Right now I am using a 3.5mm to 2x 2.5mm converter and feeding sound from my motherboard's sound card into the home theatre.

Please advice

The BH would take 5 stereo 3.5mm 1 for L/R main, 1 for Centre and Sub(LF), 1 for Left Front/Right Front, 1 for Left Mid/RightMid and 1 for LeftRear/RightRear.

However, the only thing I know that can put out 10 channels of audio is a pro audio interface and I certainly don't know any movies out there delivering 9.1 audio.

Yours however claims to come with a USB connector as well as ethernet and Wi-Fi so you should be good to go without audio cables. Personally I would recommend them however. The convertors are bound to be substandard in a 9.1 home audio system as they expect you to have your own DAC at that price point.

See the interface tab under here http://www.lg.com/in/home-entertainment/lg-BH9530

 

[Steel111]

I am thinking of getting Asus Xonar D2X Sound Card for razer tiamat 7.1 headphones. But I also have LG bh9530 home theatre, and I am not sure how to connect the analog outputs of the sound card into the home theatre. Do such home theatres require sound cards at all? Right now I am using a 3.5mm to 2x 2.5mm converter and feeding sound from my motherboard's sound card into the home theatre.

Please advice

The BH would take 5 stereo 3.5mm 1 for L/R main, 1 for Centre and Sub(LF), 1 for Left Front/Right Front, 1 for Left Mid/RightMid and 1 for LeftRear/RightRear.

However, the only thing I know that can put out 10 channels of audio is a pro audio interface and I certainly don't know any movies out there delivering 9.1 audio.

Yours however claims to come with a USB connector as well as ethernet and Wi-Fi so you should be good to go without audio cables. Personally I would recommend them however. The convertors are bound to be substandard in a 9.1 home audio system as they expect you to have your own DAC at that price point.

See the interface tab under here http://www.lg.com/in/home-entertainment/lg-BH9530

I believe the BH9530 has its own system of making a normal 5.1 information into its 9.1 using its own technology. But I was concerned about the 5.1 information I am feeding to it from my integrated audio card. If I can send it better and processed 5.1/7.1 information from a discrete audio card, the sound quality should improve right? Then again, I am not trying to feed it 9.1 data.

My point being, should I use an external sound card for the home theatre or not?

 

[genz]

I am thinking of getting Asus Xonar D2X Sound Card for razer tiamat 7.1 headphones. But I also have LG bh9530 home theatre, and I am not sure how to connect the analog outputs of the sound card into the home theatre. Do such home theatres require sound cards at all? Right now I am using a 3.5mm to 2x 2.5mm converter and feeding sound from my motherboard's sound card into the home theatre.

Please advice

The BH would take 5 stereo 3.5mm 1 for L/R main, 1 for Centre and Sub(LF), 1 for Left Front/Right Front, 1 for Left Mid/RightMid and 1 for LeftRear/RightRear.

However, the only thing I know that can put out 10 channels of audio is a pro audio interface and I certainly don't know any movies out there delivering 9.1 audio.

Yours however claims to come with a USB connector as well as ethernet and Wi-Fi so you should be good to go without audio cables. Personally I would recommend them however. The convertors are bound to be substandard in a 9.1 home audio system as they expect you to have your own DAC at that price point.

See the interface tab under here http://www.lg.com/in/home-entertainment/lg-BH9530

I believe the BH9530 has its own system of making a normal 5.1 information into its 9.1 using its own technology. But I was concerned about the 5.1 information I am feeding to it from my integrated audio card. If I can send it better and processed 5.1/7.1 information from a discrete audio card, the sound quality should improve right? Then again, I am not trying to feed it 9.1 data.

My point being, should I use an external sound card for the home theatre or not?

Most certainly. There's a helluva lot of EM noise inside your case. The question is what price point would you be aiming at. Most people here will just suggest getting an Asus Xonar, but there are much better alternatives at similar and different price points.

 

[Steel111]

I am thinking of getting Asus Xonar D2X Sound Card for razer tiamat 7.1 headphones. But I also have LG bh9530 home theatre, and I am not sure how to connect the analog outputs of the sound card into the home theatre. Do such home theatres require sound cards at all? Right now I am using a 3.5mm to 2x 2.5mm converter and feeding sound from my motherboard's sound card into the home theatre.

Please advice

The BH would take 5 stereo 3.5mm 1 for L/R main, 1 for Centre and Sub(LF), 1 for Left Front/Right Front, 1 for Left Mid/RightMid and 1 for LeftRear/RightRear.

However, the only thing I know that can put out 10 channels of audio is a pro audio interface and I certainly don't know any movies out there delivering 9.1 audio.

Yours however claims to come with a USB connector as well as ethernet and Wi-Fi so you should be good to go without audio cables. Personally I would recommend them however. The convertors are bound to be substandard in a 9.1 home audio system as they expect you to have your own DAC at that price point.

See the interface tab under here http://www.lg.com/in/home-entertainment/lg-BH9530

I believe the BH9530 has its own system of making a normal 5.1 information into its 9.1 using its own technology. But I was concerned about the 5.1 information I am feeding to it from my integrated audio card. If I can send it better and processed 5.1/7.1 information from a discrete audio card, the sound quality should improve right? Then again, I am not trying to feed it 9.1 data.

My point being, should I use an external sound card for the home theatre or not?

Most certainly. There's a helluva lot of EM noise inside your case. The question is what price point would you be aiming at. Most people here will just suggest getting an Asus Xonar, but there are much better alternatives at similar and different price points.

I would say no fixed range or anything. Any suggestions would be highly appreciated. But I am more worried about connecting my home theatre to my sound card. I doubt if any converter exists for converting 5 channel analog output to maybe HDMi or optical. Or the sound card should have an optical output or something. But since, I was also planning to get tiamat 7.1, which needs 5 discrete analog channels, it will suit me better if I had a sound card with analog outputs and an optical output.

 

[genz]

Well the thing is to see an advantage you must send in analogue information. There is no actual way to improve audio quality from optical data because that streams data from the computer, not audio in analogue form. Your head unit for your 5.1 then does the digital to analogue conversion. If you have been doing this already with USB (which basically gets the same data and does the same process) then switching will not really help as the problem will either be bad conversion to analogue by your BH's head unit or a bad master clock (in your PC) which causes jitter which is like audio speeding up and slowing down on a very minute and fast scale and is the main reason that poor quality sound cards sound so poor. A bad master clock will be cured by an interface as they have thier own.

You're much better having it converted then sent to the BH through multiple audio cables.

If you want to do so you can use an 8 channel interface. The cheapest one I know of that will serve you brilliantly is the Focusrite Saffire Pro 24. You won't use the inputs (unless you wanna have and band recording session in your room) but it's going to be head and shoulders above what you have as far as quality is concerned. You will want dual 1/4" RCA male to single 3.5mm female cables or adapters to use this with your BH best. Oh, and if the BH has a single optical it won't be taking 5.1 data. Optical in any more than 2 channels is either TOSLINK or ADAT. An interface that supports toslink is usually a unit for recording and/or sound reinforcing large stage performances like arena systems (because they actually go up to 256 channels). An ADAT SPDIF capable interface however is around $500.

http://www.normans.co.uk/p-2030-focusrite-saffire-pro-24-audio-interface.aspx?CAWELAID=475625434&catargetid=720007940000010937&cadevice=c&cagpspn=pla&gclid=CL-35cmI6LoCFQ7LtAodWF8Ahw

If you want something a little less audiophile then Creative do a good Soundblaster surround Unit. I have used that before and it sounds pretty good.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/creative-sound-blaster-x-fi-surround-5.1-pro-usb-sound-card-506435?c=maplin&utm_source=gcs&utm_medium=gcs_search&utm_campaign=A09KJ&utm_content=External+Sound+Cards&_$ja=cgid:7690034683|tsid:49900|cid:119049523|lid:44978789203|nw:{network}|crid:26685291043|rnd:{random}|dvc:{device}|adp:{adposition}&gclid=CIutrJeJ6LoCFQ7LtAodWF8Ahw

EDIT: Sorry about the late post. I have got to sleep now and I know that my links are UK ones but I can't seem to get Google to give me US stores atm and I'm hella tired lol. I will update you in the morning but I put them up if you want to Google them yourself

 

[Steel111]

Well the thing is to see an advantage you must send in analogue information. There is no actual way to improve audio quality from optical data because that streams data from the computer, not audio in analogue form. Your head unit for your 5.1 then does the digital to analogue conversion. If you have been doing this already with USB (which basically gets the same data and does the same process) then switching will not really help as the problem will either be bad conversion to analogue by your BH's head unit or a bad master clock (in your PC) which causes jitter which is like audio speeding up and slowing down on a very minute and fast scale and is the main reason that poor quality sound cards sound so poor. A bad master clock will be cured by an interface as they have thier own.

You're much better having it converted then sent to the BH through multiple audio cables.

If you want to do so you can use an 8 channel interface. The cheapest one I know of that will serve you brilliantly is the Focusrite Saffire Pro 24. You won't use the inputs (unless you wanna have and band recording session in your room) but it's going to be head and shoulders above what you have as far as quality is concerned. You will want dual 1/4" RCA male to single 3.5mm female cables or adapters to use this with your BH best. Oh, and if the BH has a single optical it won't be taking 5.1 data. Optical in any more than 2 channels is either TOSLINK or ADAT. An interface that supports toslink is usually a unit for recording and/or sound reinforcing large stage performances like arena systems (because they actually go up to 256 channels). An ADAT SPDIF capable interface however is around $500.

http://www.normans.co.uk/p-2030-focusrite-saffire-pro-24-audio-interface.aspx?CAWELAID=475625434&catargetid=720007940000010937&cadevice=c&cagpspn=pla&gclid=CL-35cmI6LoCFQ7LtAodWF8Ahw

If you want something a little less audiophile then Creative do a good Soundblaster surround Unit. I have used that before and it sounds pretty good.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/creative-sound-blaster-x-fi-surround-5.1-pro-usb-sound-card-506435?c=maplin&utm_source=gcs&utm_medium=gcs_search&utm_campaign=A09KJ&utm_content=External+Sound+Cards&_$ja=cgid:7690034683|tsid:49900|cid:119049523|lid:44978789203|nw:{network}|crid:26685291043|rnd:{random}|dvc:{device}|adp:{adposition}&gclid=CIutrJeJ6LoCFQ7LtAodWF8Ahw

EDIT: Sorry about the late post. I have got to sleep now and I know that my links are UK ones but I can't seem to get Google to give me US stores atm and I'm hella tired lol. I will update you in the morning but I put them up if you want to Google them yourself

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer and sorry for commenting so late .

As far the optical connection is concerned, I think it supports TOSLINK format. If i leave that apart, I am still not sure how to connect it to my BH model. My options are to connect it to its 2x 2.5mm Audio (L/R) female jacks, or use HDMI in connection. If I am targetting the 2x 2.5mm jacks, I am not quite sure how to convert the 8 channel 3.5mm jack outputs, into my 2.5mm jacks (I guess I need male on both sides). Also I am not quite sure, but I think those 2.5mm (L/R) jacks can support only 2 channels. Please advise a little more on how to connect the hard to the music system

 

[genz]

How many rings are on these 2.5mm jacks. The conversion to 3.5 (or 1/4" with the Focusrite) isn't a problem, the channels per cable are. To properly take 7.1 signal your speakers need 4 channels per connector, so there should be three dark rings (leaving 4 exposed silver sections including the tip) on your 2.5mm plug. If not, let me know and I'll find some schematics because it will mean that your speakers take quadraphonic or 5.1 sound and submix it into 7.1.

 

[Steel111]

How many rings are on these 2.5mm jacks. The conversion to 3.5 (or 1/4" with the Focusrite) isn't a problem, the channels per cable are. To properly take 7.1 signal your speakers need 4 channels per connector, so there should be three dark rings (leaving 4 exposed silver sections including the tip) on your 2.5mm plug. If not, let me know and I'll find some schematics because it will mean that your speakers take quadraphonic or 5.1 sound and submix it into 7.1.

Sorry my bad, the input to the head unit is form of RCA (it looked like 2.5mm ones though, from the product manual). Currently I am using male 3.5mm to 2x RCA male connector, something like this
http://www.shopclues.com/3.5-mm-stereo-male-to-2-rca-male-audio-cable-1.5-meter-speaker-cable.html?utm_source=GoogSokrati&gclid=COvM2Oq97roCFcM34godSDgA7Q
So it has no rings on it. I will need 2x RCA male connector and some 3.5mm male connectors on the other side.

On another topic, the Focusrite isn't readily available to me and the creative one doesn't have 7.1 (althought still viable). What would you say to the "Asus Xonar D2X 7.1" or the "Asus Xonar DX" or perhaps an even more basic model "Sabrent USB-SND8 8-Channel 3D USB 2.0 External 7.1 Surround Sound Box with Digital" ?

However, the interface of the connection takes more priority than choosing one of those cards right now.

 

[genz]

You are at a major loss if you only have two RCA ports on the surround system, as that means it can only take stereo audio. RCA is one channel per connector, hence the old Composite video connectors being 3a RCA leads in red white and yellow. (Left Right and video).

After realising that the tw spec model and yours are basically identical (I could not find a picture of the back of a non-tw) I've double checked on the spec on their official website and it actually slyly confirms this (by putting LR next to the Audio connector checkbox)

As far as optical is concerned, you're stuck with compressed Dolby DTS as that's the 5.1 signal sent down a single connector. With decent speakers such as yours, you can probably hear compression artifacts long before clock jitter.

Have you tried using it in USB or LAN mode by any chance? Now I've dug into the unit a little it seems both analogue and optical are very compromised.

 

[Steel111]

You are at a major loss if you only have two RCA ports on the surround system, as that means it can only take stereo audio. RCA is one channel per connector, hence the old Composite video connectors being 3a RCA leads in red white and yellow. (Left Right and video).

After realising that the tw spec model and yours are basically identical (I could not find a picture of the back of a non-tw) I've double checked on the spec on their official website and it actually slyly confirms this (by putting LR next to the Audio connector checkbox)

As far as optical is concerned, you're stuck with compressed Dolby DTS as that's the 5.1 signal sent down a single connector. With decent speakers such as yours, you can probably hear compression artifacts long before clock jitter.

Have you tried using it in USB or LAN mode by any chance? Now I've dug into the unit a little it seems both analogue and optical are very compromised.

The LAN mode is for internet connection as it has got its kind of web browser and can play videos from youtube, etc. The USB mode is for playing any video/audio from a external HDD or a pendrive. I did recheck the sound quality difference, when playing directly on the unit from pendrive and by playing through my pc. It is indeed better when I play a 5.1 information file, such as a bluray, directly on the home theatre system (perhaps in this case it will able to utilize the full audio information in it), but generally I don't use it like that, since the controls are quite restrictive as compared to my pc (also for games I have to connect through pc).

I have already asked the product support team if the optical connection is TOSLINK or not, we will have to see about that. If we leave these two interfaces out, is there any HDMI output sound card, which I can connect it to the HDMI input of the unit?

 

[Steel111]

The optical input is indeed through a TOSLINK interface, but it can carry only compressed DTS format and not the lossless TrueHD format. From my research, the best option would be to make the interface would be through any sound card which can provide me a SPDIF header which I can connect it to my graphics card. Then through the HDMI output of the graphics card, I can get both the video and audio outputs, and connect this to my Home theatre (if I only want to listen to audio then I guess I can keep my HDMI monitor off, I have another monitor with DVI interface).

The only doubt that comes in my mind is if I am feeding my graphics card with audio information through the SPDIF header, I hope that it does not interfere with the DVI output and sound comes only along HDMI port (DVI port cant support audio in any case, but it should not get turned off or something)

If you have any other suggestion for the interface, please let me know. Thanks

 

[genz]

The optical input is indeed through a TOSLINK interface, but it can carry only compressed DTS format and not the lossless TrueHD format. From my research, the best option would be to make the interface would be through any sound card which can provide me a SPDIF header which I can connect it to my graphics card. Then through the HDMI output of the graphics card, I can get both the video and audio outputs, and connect this to my Home theatre (if I only want to listen to audio then I guess I can keep my HDMI monitor off, I have another monitor with DVI interface).

The only doubt that comes in my mind is if I am feeding my graphics card with audio information through the SPDIF header, I hope that it does not interfere with the DVI output and sound comes only along HDMI port (DVI port cant support audio in any case, but it should not get turned off or something)

If you have any other suggestion for the interface, please let me know. Thanks

Tis a shame really, but it's quite common for these guys to release systems that aren't quite designed the way it would appear they are.

There are plenty of Interfaces that will take a S/P DIF In, but the question will be about passthrough to the second HDMI (simultaneously).

You could pick Up an M-Audio Transit Unit from Ebay for about $40, they are hands down the best ever made for their price and will get your SP/DIF input into your PC from your TV nicely. Output can come from the HDMI port if it's possible, and it will still be able to do passthrough to any other audio card you get in order to drive your headphones (like that Xonar).

I do believe you have found a gap in the market, as I can't find any TOSLINK in and out interfaces with with built in SP-DIF for anything below the a Behringer Firepower FCA610, which gives you 10 ins. This is about £200 in the UK

http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/FCA610.aspx

Had you the inputs in your surround sound you could actually run 9.1 directly from this, as you don't you can still run 5.1 from your headphones as well as two SP DIF for in/out or SPDIF in then HDMI out, GPU allowing.

Again you will need to adapt your 3.5mm cables from your headphones into dual mono 1.4" TRS using a simple adapter that looks like this as interfaces of this level take single mono inputs to each socket.

http://www.gak.co.uk/en/hosa-3-5mm-to-dual-quarter-inch-jackcmp-159/16958?gclid=COyf4838gLsCFSbHtAodC1YAXg