Hi everyone, I have a entry level Onkyo HT-S3305B reciever and 5.1 speakers with subwoofer. I have my HTPC hooked directly to it via HDMI. The HDMI runs from my 5850 directly to the reciever (using VIA onboard on the PQ5 Pro Turbo), and I'm satisified with the quality of sound that I'm recieving. I was just curious though if there would be an improvement in quality by installing a mid-range sound card and hooking it up the the reciever by an optical cable? I mostly listen to lossless music, some of it FLAC 16/44.1, but listen to a lot of 24/96 vinyl rips, and use my system to play Blu Rays. Any opinions would be very helpful! Thanks!
Well, possibly depending on how you connect the receiver. Does your receiver have multichannel analog inputs? Check out the back, they look like this: The above are for 7.1.
Can you shrink that down a bit? Looks like you are stuck here with S/Pdif or HDMI. Using a soundcard will not offer you better sound quality over say an onboard or other source running a digital connection. They will all sound the same because the receiver is producing the sound NOT the card. It's a shame that more and more receivers are leaving out the multi-channel analog connections these days. Without those connections, you are basically stuck with what you have. You could go with stereo out of a high end soundcard but I think you are looking for surround sound here.
Many thanks to you both Anarion and ROBSCIX, saved me a bit of money. I'm quite happy with the sound I get, but just wanted to see if I could squeeze out a bit more quality. I may check out some more high-end receivers when I have a bit more cash on the hip. Thanks again.
You could hook the onboards front output to one of the L&R inputs on the receiver but you would just get stereo. Might be an option for music or something to check out when you are bored. Aside from that you are stuck with what you have but if you enjoy it then it is all good. Glad we could help.
