5.1 monitoring help, Lots of questions... Options

[torturesauce]

Hello,

I have a pair of KRK Rokit Powered 5 G2 monitors. I plan to buy three more of them, as well as a KRK subwoofer. I want to make a 5.1 monitoring system.

Can someone please recommend a cheap USB interface to plug them in? Will an interface with eight analogue 1/4 outputs like PHONIC FIREFLY 808 U do?

Also, if I connect an interface such as the Phonic one with a DVD/Blu-ray player via S/PDIF, will I be able to hear sound through the monitors? Is there a way to feed HD audio like Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA to the system somehow? Should I use an AV receiver with HDMI I/O and then transfer the sound via S/PDIF to the interface and the monitors, or should I just play back a Blu-ray via my PC and let the software do the rest?

[alexeysp]

Professional audio interfaces like the one you mentioned are usually not intended for surround multichannel reproduction and monitoring. From the software point of view they act as several independent stereo or mono channels, and thus are more suitable for multichannel recording and real-time mixing.

For surround sound reproduction you would better do with a multimedia-oriented device (sound card or digital media player, depending on what signal sources and what software you are planning to use).

As for your S/PDIF questions: multichannel audio can only be transferred via S/PDIF in compressed form (AC3 or DTS). This has two consequences: first, to be able to reproduce multichannel audio from the S/PDIF input, the device must have Dolby Digital and/or DTS decoder built-in; second, you cannot simply redirect HDMI input to S/PDIF output, since HDMI supports uncompressed multichannel audio that would need to be compressed on-the-fly.

[DVDdoug]

Can someone please recommend a cheap USB interface to plug them in? Will an interface with eight analogue 1/4 outputs like PHONIC FIREFLY 808 U do?

Just watch out for cheap "5.1" & "7.1" USB soundcards. A lot of them are "virtual" 5.1 & 7.1 with only one regular 2-channel 3.5mm output jack. I have one of these. It works great with Dolby AC3 & DTS. I don't have Blu-Ray, so I haven't tried it with the "HD" formats.

I don't know anything about the Phonic Firefly. I would assume it can be configured for consumer DVD & Blu-Ray formats, but I don't know...

Should I use an AV receiver with HDMI I/O and then transfer the sound via S/PDIF to the interface and the monitors, or should I just play back a Blu-ray via my PC and let the software do the rest?

If you go that route, HDMI is probably better than S/PDIF (for the HD formats), and you need to make sure your A/V receiver (or preamp) has the 5.1 channel line-level outputs for you powered monitors.

[torturesauce]

Thank you all for your feedback.

DVDdoug, I have a 7.1 USB card like the Zalman you have, and it works great (it's got 4 stereo jacks instead of being "virtual"). I just wanted to make sure it's enough instead of buying something like the Phonic. Turns out it's more than enough!

I have decided not to buy more monitors at the moment, but simply buy a set of 5.1 powered Logitech speakers. It will be cheaper and more suitable for home entertainment. Yes, I still want to have a 5.1 monitoring system for surround mixing/recording, but I'll probably do that in a few years. The stereo monitors I have will do for recording, mixing and producing music and other media for now.

Thanks again, guys!