Audio setup

[obobski]

alright, I'm starting to get sick of PC grade speaker setups, and have a perfectly good sound system sitting and doing nothing my more or less abandoned home theatre room (i've just slowly been taking audio and video cables and components from the system)

so, i remember hearing horrible things about Audigy 2 series boards (I have the 2 ZS) and connecting to HT recievers, but i can't remember if thats just digital connection or for any connection (my reciever doesn't have digital in)

I'm basically wondering if anyone has some suggestions before i spend a good two hours moving furnature and equipment to hook it together just to get these monster speakers (160W RMS each, i know they aren't HUGE but they'd be so much nicer than what I've got currently) moved around for running off of the computer

also, if i connected my turntable to the Line-In RCA feeds on the front breakout box does anyone think it'd sound horrible or work worse than expected?

 

[Bigus Dickus]

Digital out should be reasonable for most consumer level boards these days, I don't think any have jitter so bad that you would care unless you had invested tens of thousands elsewhere. I'm assuming the Creative cards aren't doing any funky stuff with the sampling frequency now... that was a problem back in the Live and Audigy1 days, hopefully they are adhering to more normal formats now.

The generally recommended soundcard series for what you are talking about is the M-Audio boards... they have a variety spanning everything from simple analog stereo out, to in/out for recording, to combinations of digital/analog I/O for consumer/semi-professional playback and recording (going well into the semi-professional territory with some pretty nice boards), as well as a 7 channel (or do they have a newer version?) board, the Revolution I believe it was called, that is good for both gaming and multi-channel HT applications.

 

[_xxx_]

Your analog outs should work just fine with that setup, so give it a try.

Instead of moving the setup, you can also just take your PC to that room and try it there before doing the big move.

 

[obobski]

cept my PC is caseless and uses a pair of CRT monitors, and the room all that stuff sits in is in a state of disarray (to give you an idea of how much junk is on the floor, i've put blankets down to make it safe to walk on again)

i might try it, but i'm wondering how much output power the Audigy 2 can drive, I tried the setup with my mp3 player and it was quiet until i got the amp up to like 80-90% volume and the mp3 player @ 100%, put the same song from the CD into the 5-disc player and it was 3x as loud at 20% volume, so I'm not sure if the Audigy is going to be able to match with the CD player or if its going to suck like the mp3 player, comments on that? (its analog out, don't have a digital input on the amp)

 

[Bigus Dickus]

The voltage level of the Audigy line out should be sufficient to drive consumer level gear... pro gear has a different standard that allows for more voltage, so don't go that route.

I'm surprised at the MP3 player though... was that using the headphone jack? The iPod has plenty of voltage to drive consumer gear... which one were you using?

 

[obobski]

unlike 200 million other americans, i actually hate apple, so i would never be caught dead using an ipod because its a POS in my opinion, i was using an Olympus m:robe MR-100 without any of the firmware updates to open up more volume (because it gets damned loud for my earbuds)

and i'm not talking about voltage out, i'm talking about pre-amplification

 

[Bigus Dickus]

Well, yeah... it's the maximum voltage level of the pre-outs that determine whether it can drive consumer gear adequately. Volume is voltage controlled...

But the Audigy should work... worth moving the speakers to give it a try.