Sound card for HTPC

[Skandaluz]

Hi, I'm goin to be building my dad a HTPC soon and i was wondering which sound cards are good for the HTPC. I was looking at the M-Audio line of sounds card which seem to be quite interesting. The main thing that i'm really looking for besides quality and such is optical or coaxial out as i was to connect it to the reciever. Also, I was looking at the Emu line of sound cards but are too expensive.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Chaintech AV-710 is a good card for digital out.

No gaming on this computer?

 

[Skandaluz]

Nope, their will be no gaming on this computer. Probably will be mainly used for DVD playing as it proves to provide better video quality then a regular DVD-player and maybe music.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

The Chaintech seems like a good option for you then.

 

[Skandaluz]

I'm not really familiar with the Chaintech brand (though of course have heard of them). Any other suggestions besides Chaintech?

 

[rambow]

Chaintech is pretty good, though their manuals are often useless. I have a mobo and video card from them right now, works very well.

Creative, however, is a brand you could look into. They are one of the top brands for sound.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: Skandaluz
I'm not really familiar with the Chaintech brand (though of course have heard of them). Any other suggestions besides Chaintech?

Yeah, this is pretty much the only card they make that's popular.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829120103

It's based off the Via Envy 24HT-S chip.
More info on this and other Via Envy boards:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=364771
(thread is kind of old so not all the links work)

The Chaintech is a great deal at $25 and is capable of bit-perfect digital out and will pass AC3 streams just find to your receiver. I had one for quite a while and it served me well.

Going with a creative card isn't the best idea for music, and the benefits of the gaming features are going to be worthless to you.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

How about this for $50?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829118106

 

[Skandaluz]

Hrmm... I've heard a few things about turtle beach but not really a fan of them.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

What companies do you like?

 

[Skandaluz]

Umms.... Creative, M-Audio, E-Mu and thats about all i can think of off the top of my head.

On the Chaintech AV-710, does it support DTS and DD 5.1 hardware decode in addition to optical out?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I don't remember if I tried it with DTS (I don't have it in my comptuer anymore), but DD worked just fine.

I only used it in digital out mode.

 

[Skandaluz]

All in all, what i'm really looking for is a sound card that send quality encoded sound to my onkyo reciever for when i watch dvd's and such with dts and/or dd sound. I've read up a bit on the Chaintech AV-710 and it seems to be quite a card. If all else fails, that'll probably be the card i would get. But the X-Mystique from bluegear i believe caught my eye too. Anyone have any thought or info on that card?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

That's what I've replaced it with. If you're not doing gaming I don't see the point.

 

[GamerExpress]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
That's what I've replaced it with. If you're not doing gaming I don't see the point.

I agree 99% with this statement.

 

[Slammy1]

If all you're looking to do is pass-through, then any card will do. I've been looking at this card as a replacement for my A2 (hate the resample to 48-kHz).

http://www.bluegears.com/xplosion.html

It's not due out until January, but is supposed to do real-time DTS encoding for sound. The Santa Cruz, Revo, and Chaintech (cheap but decent) are common choices for the HTPC crowd.

 

[WebDude]

I'm running the X-mystique. Good card that's gotten good reviews (on NewEgg). My only problem is im running XP64 and they don't have fully developed drivers for XP64 yet. But I wanted something to replace my soundstorm when I upgraded the mb.

It's great for having a simple optical connection to the amp, with dd live real-time encoding. BUT, if all you're gonna do is watch movies, then just use the pass through on any card, like they all said above.

 

[crizzar]

I opted to buy a motherboard with digital out to make things easier.

Depending on your processor, they can be had from ~$60 and up.

The first HTPC I built in a mid tower case had a via chipset mobo that cost me about $60. When I decided to make a component style one for the living room (audio component style case, that is) I opted for an Asus P800 series board. It cost almost $100, but was well worth it I think.

Motherboard

Pair that with a p4 3.0 and a zalman cooler and you're golden.

 

[Slick5150]

Originally posted by: Skandaluz
All in all, what i'm really looking for is a sound card that send quality encoded sound to my onkyo reciever for when i watch dvd's and such with dts and/or dd sound. I've read up a bit on the Chaintech AV-710 and it seems to be quite a card. If all else fails, that'll probably be the card i would get. But the X-Mystique from bluegear i believe caught my eye too. Anyone have any thought or info on that card?

The X-Mystique would be complete overkill for what you need. All you're doing is passing an ENCODED DD or DTS signal to your receiver. Any card w/ a digital out can do that more or less. The X-Mystique card allows you to encode other audio sources into a DD (or DTS?) stream and send that to a receiver, but you don't need that ability. Your movies are already encoded so the stream just needs to be passed onto your receiver.

Yoyo is right, the Chaintech card is great for the purpose you need.

 

[Skandaluz]

Hrmm... The motherboard I'm going to be using (Abit NF-7 Non S) has an optical out in the back. Would that be just fine to output to the reciever or should i just go ahead and get the chaintech sound card anyways?

 

[Mavrick007]

That should be fine man. I was just going to suggest not buying a new sound card if your motherboard has optical/coax out. This way it's just passing the data through to your receiver to do all the work. Cheap and simple

 

[crizzar]

Originally posted by: Skandaluz
Hrmm... The motherboard I'm going to be using (Abit NF-7 Non S) has an optical out in the back. Would that be just fine to output to the reciever or should i just go ahead and get the chaintech sound card anyways?

That'll work perfectly

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Use the integrated :thumbsup:

 

[Skandaluz]

Great! Just saved me some money, haha. Another question though. If I use the optical out to the reciever, all it does it just send the sound via optical cable (toslink) and the reciever should just decode it right?

Also, anyone happen to know how to configure/use fddshow?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Right.