Quote:
Originally Posted by
arttext 
Without meaning to offend anyone, but I see a lot of messages here from people with "computer audio setups" (so to speak.) Like someone earlier mentioned, it's a waste of (their) money to buy this card.
It's not about the bitrate, sample rate, watts etc.
To benefit lossless audio the whole chain needs to be a high quality one.
That means an AVR with HDMI in/out capable of basically anything (Dolby HD, DTS HD, HD Master and all the lesser codecs.
That's only the AVR, (1000 U$ and up).
An even more important link in the HD sound chain is the speakers (7 of them plus a subwoofer).
And we're talking at least mid range stuff here, especially for the front en center speakers. A whole set of mediocre (=not high end) quality might set you back another 1000 U$.
Cables? (quality speaker cables and HDMI cables, no wireless sh*t): Another 200 U$.
Need I say more?
My whole point is (again) not to offend anyone but to discourage people spending 200 U$ or more on a card that performs only as well as one's PA system and then complaining that there's no audible difference.
I play my movies (gamers don't neccesarily need this card) on a large 52'' plasma screen with an Onkyo TX-SR875 AVR (mediocre at best), 2x B&O S75 left and right (mediocre again), 1x Tannoy dedicated center speaker (again mediocre), 2x KEF surround (mediocre again) and 2x low end back speakers (worse).
And even I am not sure I will hear the difference between lossy and lossless but I'm willing to give it a try.
My advice is to read this thread about HD audio (and video)issues:
http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=16079http://www.tomsguide.com/us/high-def...view-1088.html
as well as threads here on this forum.
I agree that the rest of your system needs to be of high quality in order to make it worthwhile for BD playback. I've been into high end audio going on about 34 years now so quality audio is important to me. I actually backed off of the audio side of things for many years because the hype and cost got to the point where you needed to make a minimum of multiple six figures in order to seriously be in the game. I made the migration to home theater and found another way to spend my money on a hobby, but was able to get more bang for the buck as a result.
I've been a DVR owner and hacker for about 8 years now, ever since the Tivo and ReplayTV's were introduced. I built my first HTPC about 18 months ago and, more recently, an unRAID server. With my DVR backgtround and switch to HDTV plus the abundance of local OTA HD programming, getting into an HTPC was a natural migration for me. I was a fairly early adopter of HD-DVDs and eventually added Blu-Ray into the mix, but only on the PC side. As a result, I store all of my BD disks and HD-DVDs on the unRAID server.
If I have any hope of getting the best audio out of them I need to be able to do it via a PC interface. The Xonar HDAV1.3 is the perfect choice for my setup. I could buy a dedicated BD player but my situation doesn't always allow me to watch BD movies under certain schedule constraints so I need to rip them to the server for later viewing (don't ask
).
I recently bought an Onkyo Pro PR-SC885P preamp/processor so I already have the front end I need to process the HD audio streams with HDMI 1.3 switching. I'm pretty sure the rest of my system qualifies as fairly high-end (Definitive Technology Mythos one's [front] two's [two pairs for surround and surround back], three [center], all powered by Kenwood L-07M monoblock amps [150wpc rms @ 8 ohms] and a Supercube Reference sub with integrated 1300-watt amp) so I'm just waiting for the HDAV1.3 to become available and complete the system.
I also have a couple of S3 Tivos and a standalone HD-DVD player connected to a 60" Sony LcoS RPTV.
