SOUND

[guppy]

What do I need to have larger than life sound? Will the sound hardware on my motherboard suffice? I don't know shit about sound.




MotherBoard Specs
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... id=3516#sp


Do I need a cable like this?

http://www.amazon.com/Monster-THXIMINI8 ... B00006YZ3Y

[STC]

What's your amp guppy?

[guppy]

What's your amp guppy?

Well I got an RCA (Model #RT2250) from 10years ago. It probably needs to be upgraded as well, huh?

[makryger]

If your amp is 10 years old, it probably doesnt have HDMI. Otherwise, you could have the HDMI go straight to the amp with audio included. Otherwise, I'd suggest getting an optical cable- that will give you the digital signal in multichannel surround sound, and your amp probably has that one. If you want to just bypass the amp, then HDMi to your TV will give you two channel audio.

[newfiend]

By larger than life what do you want exactly? Do you want it to wake the cat or wake the neighbors 2 doors down? I opted for wake the neighbors ..i started by buying a AVR set it aside, then started picking out speakers.. I bought Polk audio one at a time till I had all 5.1. Then bought the cables and connectors. It took a few months to get it all but the end result is awesome. I am so glad I did it this way.. I use the HDMI out of the HTPC to my AVR and it passes all the audio codecs including the HD codecs off Blu-Rays to the AVR. Movies are incredible. It all depends on what you want the end result to be.. Let us know and we can point you in the right direction.

[guppy]

If your amp is 10 years old, it probably doesnt have HDMI. Otherwise, you could have the HDMI go straight to the amp with audio included. Otherwise, I'd suggest getting an optical cable- that will give you the digital signal in multichannel surround sound, and your amp probably has that one. If you want to just bypass the amp, then HDMi to your TV will give you two channel audio.

Are you talking about running an hdmi from the motherboards hdmi port?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I am thinking that I disabled the on-board video in the motherobard's bios screen. Video is being put out by my graphics card. Didn't this also disbale the onboard hdmi port?

Or were you talking about running a hdmi cable from my graphics card and then assuming that the amp has an hdmi out, run another hdmi from the amps output to the tv's input?

[STC]

I just looked up your amp and it has Coaxial and optical digital inputs, no HDMI input. Your best bet is to get an optical cable (no need for Monster, any cheapo cable will do) and wire that up to your optical out on the motherboard. Configure Windows sound to pump out through the optical out and set to 'stereo' (yes honestly). Then configure Media Center sound for 5.1.
You should be good to go.

[TheOsburnFamil]

hey guppy, STC's right-- you should be good there. That being said-- What do you plan on watching that's larger then life in your book? More specifically, what types of content do you see yourself wanting to get the better audio? Do you have a bluray drive & intend on using something like TMT or PowerDVD? Do you use it for DVDs, analog tv recordings (like from a Set-Top-Box with rca going into a tuner or something)? What about a ceton cablecard tuner?

All those questions may answer how much effort you really need to be putting into it. But, if you're starting down that road, and you want it for things like digital tv or blurays, etc,.. and you can afford to (seems like who can these days, right?), seriously consider spending the money on an HDMI-based AMP. It just makes your life SOOOO much easier. Not to mention-- it's the best you can get!

[guppy]

I have a bluray drive (TMT) but most of my movies have already been converted to avi or mkv. The wife aint gonna like an amp, so it will only be used during action movies. yup a new amp is definately been something I have been thinking about ... with wireless speakers.

[guppy]

Gonna pick up a optical cable and give it a shot. I'll post back results in a few days. THANKS for all you guys input!

[dduk]

guppy,

If I'm reading the specs of your amp correctly, you might be better of having the sound card on your motherboard handle the audio decoding and passing the analogue audio straight out to your amp. Software such as Arcsoft's TMT3/5 will do this for you.

The benefit here is that whilst an optical cable is only one cable instead of five/six, the bandwidth it can carry is very limited.

Using the analogue out method, you could enjoy Dolby TrueHD/DTS Master Audio without buying anything more than five analogue cables.

[STC]

This is great advice as well. I don't have a fantastic amp - It's the Logitech Z5500 PC range, but it works well for my needs. I use both Coaxial and analogue exactly the same as described above. Coaxial for regular TV viewing, and the analogue to get DTS/TrueHD using TMT. I do it this way because I get better sound viewing TV via Coaxial then I do using analogue during regular Dolby Digital broadcasts. I can't explain why, but I think the DAC on the logitech does a better job for dolby digital then the onboard sound chip...

[dduk]

I can't explain why, but I think the DAC on the logitech does a better job for dolby digital then the onboard sound chip...

I'd be doing exactly the same. All of my amp at home decode the HD audio formats passed over HDMI with the exception of my 'main' computer on which I do all of my work. On that I have a first generation Auzentech Meridian sound card with custom OPAMPS. The DACs on that card are far better than those in my mid-range amps.

I would imagine that the DACs on onboard sound cards are not much to write home about.

[guppy]

When you say coaxial are you talking aboutt he rca jack looking connector, not the tv coax connector. where do I plug five coaxial cables into?

[guppy]

I dont even see a place to plug in a coaxial cable?

[STC]

If you go my suggestion which you can to start with, you need an optical Toslink cable. It plugs into the square dust shield protected port above the HDMI port on your mobo then into the same looking port on your amp. Pay around 10 bucks, no more for one at somewhere like Radioshack I use COAX because my motherboard has COAX and no optical. They are really one and the same thing just a different presentation of socket type. Your amp accepts both types but your motherboard has digital optical out only.

Once you get this working, if you want to play, add to your setup some analogue RCA cables coming from the analogue 2.5mm jacks on your mobo to the RCA jacks of the amp. You'd need 3 of them, each one would need to be stereo.

[guppy]

Ok i order the monster optic cable off ebay for $10. It comes with a S-video cable too even though I dont need it. I'll let ya know how it works out in about a week.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

[guppy]

I hooked up the optical cable to the amp and watched jurassic Park .. WOW! The sound is phenominal. And loud enough to wake the dead. I still might play with Dduk's suggestion a get the analog cables and see what that does. Thanks for all the info on the matter.

[STC]

The analogue cables give you the ability for DTS/TrueHD on the discs that support this. Look on the back cover. Any that support these modes, flick over to analogue on the HTPC, set TMT up the same and change input on the amp. Be prepared for uber quality sound.

[mmatheny]

Beware! - getting MC to work with surround sound over HDMI is (can be) an exercise in frustration, as I have witnessed. For a product that is to be used as the main multimedia component, it's handling of the newest surround sound specs is sketchy at best.