Hello,
I bought an Alienware M17x R4 with the Nvidia 680m a couple months ago and about two weeks ago decided to hook it up to my Yamaha A2000 receiver which then connects to a 55" Samsung D8000 - it has been awesome playing BF3 on the big screen
I have the laptop connected to the receiver via HDMI and am getting 5.1 surround audio on my games over the HT speakers after configuring the audio on the video card correctly.
My question now is I often need to play games at low volume as the media room is near our other bedrooms and I have been looking at headphones, I'd like them to be wireless as I have a bit of distance between the seating and the laptop and don't want the cables getting pinched or tangled in the room. I was looking at the Astro A40/A50 headphones leaning towards the A50's due to wireless but my understanding is the M17x R4 audio card does not support Dolby Digital Live so in order to get the 7.1 surround the A50 supports I would need to buy an external soundcard like the ASUS Xonar U3 which seems well reviewed and liked by everyone. The laptop also has an optical out jack which I could use for connectivity purposes if needed.
Has anyone had experience with the A50's or the Xonar U3? Will this work with my laptop connected via HDMI to the receiver for audio and video? It seems like I would need to get an external sound card for the headphones and use HDMI for video only. I definitely want the surround sound capabilities for the headphones, my friend has an A40 and says the directional audio works quite well in games. I'm open to other external headphones or sound cards as well, just been reading about those two quite a bit.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
I bought an Alienware M17x R4 with the Nvidia 680m a couple months ago and about two weeks ago decided to hook it up to my Yamaha A2000 receiver which then connects to a 55" Samsung D8000 - it has been awesome playing BF3 on the big screen
I have the laptop connected to the receiver via HDMI and am getting 5.1 surround audio on my games over the HT speakers after configuring the audio on the video card correctly.My question now is I often need to play games at low volume as the media room is near our other bedrooms and I have been looking at headphones, I'd like them to be wireless as I have a bit of distance between the seating and the laptop and don't want the cables getting pinched or tangled in the room. I was looking at the Astro A40/A50 headphones leaning towards the A50's due to wireless but my understanding is the M17x R4 audio card does not support Dolby Digital Live so in order to get the 7.1 surround the A50 supports I would need to buy an external soundcard like the ASUS Xonar U3 which seems well reviewed and liked by everyone. The laptop also has an optical out jack which I could use for connectivity purposes if needed.
Has anyone had experience with the A50's or the Xonar U3? Will this work with my laptop connected via HDMI to the receiver for audio and video? It seems like I would need to get an external sound card for the headphones and use HDMI for video only. I definitely want the surround sound capabilities for the headphones, my friend has an A40 and says the directional audio works quite well in games. I'm open to other external headphones or sound cards as well, just been reading about those two quite a bit.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
