Good Quality sound card with coax or optical out wanted. Need advice plz.

[admin_exported]

Hi

I have just decided to use my new PC as my one of my main sources for music and
also as a semi HTPC.

The advice I need is for a good quality sound card that will send 5.1 to
my onkyo AV amp for movies in DD/DTS and also send quality tunes to some M-Audio AV30
speakers I shall soon be purchasing (unless you have better
recommendations). Whether in mp3 or FLAC or on CD.

Would I be better connecting the AV30s to my PC via RCA or mini jack, or is there no difference?

My amp has coax and optical but would prefer to use coax. The amp can
decode DTS and DD-EX so I don't know if that will keep the cost of the
card down as price is an issue but I will pay for good quality.

I think I need to card to bitstream to my amp don't I?

Hoping around 40-50 pound mark. Am not really fussy but would love a
good sounding PC!

Many thanks for any help in advance.

 

[Anonymous]

Max,

If you want a good quality Home Cinema soundcard for outputting HQ analogue 5.1/7.1, then you need to conside the ASUS Xonar D2 (£90-100) as it has very good Burr Brown DACS.

If you want to use your existing home cinema AV receiver to decode surround sound then almost any soundcard whether internal or external with suitable digital ouput will do passthru.

For two channel audio playback, you are better sending data from the PC to an external DAC via either usb or coax/optical and ensuring you have a bit perfect playback chain (software/soundcard/os).

 

[John Duncan]

bendrummond:almost any soundcard whether internal or external with suitable digital ouput will do passthru

 

[Anonymous]

Great, thanks guys.

I would love a D2 or D2X but it does not have the connections I need....

I need optical in to connect my new TV via optical as while it has an amazing panel and picture the speakers are pretty pants! = Samsung LE40B550. Connect it to my PC which is always on and listen via my AV30s I am thinking. AV amp is reserved for movies etc.

I also want to connect to my AV30s as mentioned and most if not all can do this. Connecting to my AV amp is the problem as I need the analogue inputs for a proposed Sony S550 Blu Ray (amp does not do HDMI audio, sadly). Therefore it will have to be via coaxial/optical. Based on your reply and confirmation the cheapo Trust DX514 card has all the connections I need and as it is mainly digital passing then this card should suffice.

The only problem is music playback, I am sure it will be better than my onboard audio but no great shakes. I was planning on getting a dedicated external DAC in the future anyhow so it will last until then I am sure.

Does the above plan sound feasible before I go out purchasing?

Thanks again.