What to do??

Originally Posted by kapone

I'm in the process of a major upgrade to the overall A/V setup in my house, and as part of that, I built an HTPC for the bedroom. It is housed in the Dvine D5 case, with a mATX motherboard in it. (Basically while upgrading I had a spare mATX motherboard with CPU and RAM, so I decided why not?, added the case, a GeForce 6200 video card, and presto an HTPC for the bedroom).

HOWEVER, I have run into a conendrum. In the bedroom, it's gonna be a small projector projecting on 60" ish screen, with flat Pioneer plasma speakers on the sides of the screen.

Here's the issue. This HTPC will be accesing TV and DVDs from the network, I really do not want another "box" like a cable box etc sitting in the BR, since the HTPC can access everything over the network, however, I have run into a decision about the SOUND. Don't really need surround sound, but I'd like to run the two Pioneer speakers and potentially a small subwoofer.

Now, I can buy a sound card, but it won't have any amplification built in. I can buy a sound card with good analog outs (but needs to have semi good decoding), an external amp and be done with it, or I can buy a sound card with spdif out (like the Chaintech) and buy a good cheap receiver to decode and amplify. But that adds another "box".

What would be ideal is a sound card with good decoding and 5.1 analog outs, and a "small" stereo amplifier that I can put INSIDE the D5 case (with a mATX board, it has tons of space inside, which is free), and then just connect the 2 speakers and a sub. But I can't find anything like this. Maybe a sound card with built in amplification with 5.1 out??

Any thoughts?

Originally Posted by kapone


The reason I ask is because the Klipsch setup for example, has the sub volume control and the mini plug input on the left speaker, which might be a problem, since I won't be using those speakers. A regular sub with high and low inputs, with sub control on the sub itself, "should" work, correct?

Originally Posted by kapone

Okay, I have another (hopefully, not dumb) question.

If I get "just" a sub woofer which has high and low inputs, and instead of connecting the sub-out of the sound card, I connect the left and right from the sound card to the sub and then connect the speakers to the sub, it should achieve the same thing as a 2.1 setup, right?

The reason I ask is because the Klipsch setup for example, has the sub volume control and the mini plug input on the left speaker, which might be a problem, since I won't be using those speakers. A regular sub with high and low inputs, with sub control on the sub itself, "should" work, correct?