dac or sound card

One of the very good options,which I do have and use,is the uDAC2 from Nuforce. Check out some online reviews from Amazon or head-fi.org. its really a great piece for $129.

An outboard DAC would ,in most cases, be a better option sound quality wise...and yes generally they do the same thing. Having one outboard of the computer helps keep electrical noise from entering the signal path.

Most motherboard analog audio output is pretty crappy quality. To get good sound out of a computer, you need

• good quality internal sound card
• optical out from your computer into your receiver
• hdmi out from your computer into your receiver
• or an external DAC

Since you have a laptop, you can't install an internal sound card. However, does your laptop have HDMI or optical out? If not, get a DAC.

Or, a completely different option would be to see if you can use something like Boxee. Then you can stream music from your computer to your receiver, among other things.

Try looking at HRT streamers. They are DACs made more or less for computer audio, and there is at least one that is Apple centric.http://www.listenup.com/HRT+Music+St...MUSIC+STREAMER.

The point is to shift the D2A from laptop to receiver. Your receiver will do the decoding, not the laptop. The SQ issue is potentially the D to A on the laptop.

Your 467 is already the DAC. What you need to do is get a digital signal from your computer to the AVR as cleanly as possible. Does your laptop have an optical out? I haven't had experience with a Yamaha receiver excepting a HDMI input from a computer as an audio only source but that may work fine also.

If you can establish a good digital connection between your computer and AVR, then the next step is to optimise playback software on your laptop to achieve bit-perfect output.

AS the AVR does bass management and EQ and other room correction tasks... it does most of those duties digitally. If you feed it an analog signal from another DAC, then more than likely it will convert it back to digital anyhow when it receives it for its processing and then through its own DAC near the finish. Better to avoid the extra digital to analog - analog to digital steps from using a DAC before the AVR.

That's great. Just what you need.

The HDMI out will let your receiver use its DAC to process the audio. Your sound card will not be part of the audio conversion path. You'll have to set the laptop to output its sound digitally over the HDMI via the Windows control panel. Might take a little reading and research to figure out how do it, but don't buy a DAC until you try it. And in fact, if you have an TV hooked up to the receiver via HDMI, you should get video from your laptop through the receiver, too. It should be able to duplicate your laptop screen.

I am glad I found this thread as I am facing a similar situation with my audio from PC to receiver.

I have just recently connected my pc to my receiver and transferred all my cd's to flac files. Currently I am running a 35ft rca stereo cable from the PC to receiver and needlesss to say, it doesn't sound as good as my pioneer 101 disc cd player connected via analog cables to the receiver. I half expected this going into this since I too am using low quality audio connections off the mobo. I was debating on a separate DAC or using a digi connection. I am going to try the digital connection.

My question is, is there a standard preference for optical or hdmi (i can do both from the pc) for audio only? As I understand it, both should provide the same sound quality in theory anyway when it comes non non HD audio files. However I'd still like to know if there is a general preference for one over the other. This weekend when I have time I am going to try both digi connections to see if i can tell a difference.

Also, is there a limit in length in either optical or hdmi cables that will affect sound quality/signal? I will need apprx 35 ft cable. I am planning on using monoprice cables as they have nice 35ft cables for both hdmi and optical for very good pricing. I am leaning towards the optical cable solution, as hdmi can have handshake issues etc and I have no desire for video from the pc to the receiver at this time, however hdmi cable will be a more future proof solution if I ever wanted to view video from the pc to the tv.


Sorry for the long winded post, just looking for some advice here, thanks..

Blue Jeans Cable has an explanation of HDMI length restrictions.

I completely disagree about optical out.

The whole point of getting a quality sound card, like an HT Omega Claro, is because they have such phenomenal DAC's.

You want to output ANALOG from it, otherwise what's the point?

Outputting DIGITAL from it, would simply pass the signal along for the receiver's DAC which is most likely going to be inferior to a quality sound card's DAC. Once the digital -> analog conversion is done, you want to leave it pure and only allow the receiver to amplify the analog sound and no more.

Chances are, unless you have a $750+ Marantz receiver, it will not match the DAC of even a $100 Creative X-Fi card .. and entry level receivers today have very poor DAC's because so much money goes into stupid **** like 3d video switching.

So 67jason.. what kind of receiever do you have? It all depends on what piece of equipment has the better DAC. A receiver will have a better DAC than onboard motherboard sound, so outputting digital for you would be the better option unless you added a nice sound card.. in which you would then benefit from analog again.

This may be obvious but you need some good quality content on iTunes in order to get reasonable quality out of your receiver. No external DAC or sound card will make a 128 kps file sound like an Apple Lossless file...

Ummm...I didn't say anything about getting an expensive sound card to use the optical out. I use AudioQuest cables to connect my Xonar Essence STX to my reciever

But some cheap motherboard audio has optical out, and so do many Apple laptops.

Okay, I guess I misinterpreted your list as a step-by-step sort of post rather than an either/or situation But there ARE a surprising amount of people who are buying $100+ sound cards, only to output digital.


Very true.. 128k mp3's might sound okay on an ipod with cheap ibuds, but when you start to step it up with your equipment, low and even medium quality mp3's sound very cheap and muddy. I don't think its obvious to most people, because they don't realize how much less "forgiving" it gets with higher end audio equipment, because flaws and blemishes become more pronounced than ever before.

Agreed. It's pretty silly

And I did some at home testing with a Xonar D1 (about $70 on rebate) and a couple budget AVRs for my PC 2.1 before I got the Essence STX. I felt the D1's analog output edged out the DAC/DSP in the AVRs via optical (IMO, the AVRs were a little harsh, overly bright). Went with an HK 3390 instead and eventually upgraded to the STX. The reviews of the high end sound cards are right. They are awesome

You could save yourself a lot of trouble and get a Logitech Squeezebox or equivalent. In your situation its the easiest solution with lots of additional benefits, and very easy to set up.

If you can get the HDMI working, you'll notice a big difference.

Monoprice.com has some decent prices on premium HDMI cables. You don't need a $50 Monster HDMI cable from the store.

Im running a denon 1611 receiver. I will likely be upgrading to either an onkyo 709 or denon 3311/12 in the very near future though.

Earlier today I placed the pc close enough to the reciever to connect both hdmi and optical and listened to a few tracks and I could tell no difference, and both sounded lots better then the analog connected from pc to receiver.

Im still trying to decide which digi connection to use as a perm solution. Most likely will be optical.

I also have few other question about all this, just to help my understanding of how it all works.

When I run analog audio out from my pc to my lepai t-amp to my monitor 40 speakers for desktop use, the sound is great (within the limits of my gear of course). I dont experience the flat lifeless, "digitaly processed" sound that I get when running pc analog audio out to the denon then to my speakers....why is this? Even turning off all processing features on the denon and running direct mode it still sounds like ass.


Also, I experimented sending my flacs over my network to my ps3 which is connected to my receiver via hdmi and using ps3 media server, and the sound of my music is really no better then the analog out on my pc. The digi out on the pc is great though, (discovered earlier today when I tested). Why would the flac file sent over my network and out to the receiver via digi connection of my ps3 sound like crap vs the digi out of the pc directly connected to the reciever not sound like crap? I really dont think it is a set up issue, as I have all the right sound settings on the ps3 set and have my denon set up correctly (I have studied batpigs denon to english guide extensively and understand how to use the denon correctly and to my liking). Oh and the flacs are sent over a wired network not streaming.

Anyway, like I have mentioned, I am going to go with a straight digi connection from pc to receiver, just trying to understand how these difference occur...how this all works....thanks.

This is what I have found too. AVRs with digital sources works well. AVRs with analog source doesn't sound as good as the analog source straight to a 2ch pre-amp and/or poweramp.

So analog - avoid AVRs altogether. There is no point in having one in the chain with analog. However with bit-perfect digital out from my PC (with a good sound card for lower levels of jitter hopefully) to a receiver, I get room correction, EQ, bass management, and can synthesise 2ch into surroundsound as subtly or dramatically as I choose for a great 3D soundstage and excellent localisation of instruments.

This is how I listen to music these days. But if I was to strictly play back two channel material on two channels, then I would have an analog two channel system only.

I don't think that this works as a generalization. I recently tested an HK 1600 and Yamaha VX367 at home while looking for a new receiver for my PC 2.1 setup. Running the HK 1600 and the Yamaha in direct mode with analog input from my then Asus Xonar D1 was better than the optical input with the DSP path. After I had narrowed it down to the HK 1600 (I didn't care for the Yamaha sound), I ordered the HK 3390. When the 1600 was in direct mode, I had trouble telling much difference in SQ from the 3390, but kept the 3390 since the wattage output was better.

If you convert one of those flacs to wav and play it back over the PS3, does it sound better/same?

If you are using an AVR in direct mode, then all you are using it for is a volume control and as a poweramp. As I use an external poweramp off the pre-outs from my AVR, then I am also bypassing its amps. My AVR would be nothing more than a volume control.

If I was to use the analog RCAs outs of my Xonar Essence ST soundcard, then I may as well put them straight to the poweramp and use the PC for volume control. My PC and soundcard would be the pre-amp and would probably sound better than going through the AVR.

I havent tried playing wav's. It is my understanding that there should be no difference in sound quality between the two.

Tomorrow I will play around and see if there is a difference.

And if there is, then something's not converting the flacs correctly. Wouldn't surprise me if that happened since the PS3 doesn't do flac natively.

I'm not contesting how you are using your system. I'm just saying your generalization that AVRs can't produce good sound with analog doesn't hold true.

And using an Essence ST for optical out is a waste.