Hi guys, first time posting here, need help from experts

I currently have a Samsung HT-TQ22 Digital Home Cinema System for my TV, and wanted to use it on PC since my PC speaker spoit. (http://www.samsung.com/me/products/audiosystem/hometheatresystem/ht_tq22.asp?page=Specifications)

Would anyone recommend if I get a good sound card with RCA connection or go with a Y-adapter?

Please recommend me a good 5.1 sound card (normal or rca connection) within a budget of something like 150-200USD~ Will be using it for movies and music


Help much appreciated.

Audiophile 2496 has RCA connectors for both audio I/O and SPDIF datastream. However, the connector type should not be the main factor to consider when choosing an audio interface.

The ESI Juli@ is in your pricerange and has actual RCA jacks...no need to go from mini to RCA.

I edited the title in order to indicate that it was posted to the wrong forum which required that it be condensed.

It was originally titled, "Samsumg Home Cinema System on PC?, need help on selecting a sound card."

My apologies for the inaccuracy.

I will change the title from "Need soundcard with RCA connection" to something more appropriate.

hey guys! thanks for the replies~ do those support 5.1 surround ? since i will be it for movies and music.
And sorry to greynol, posted in the wrong place, my bad.

still looking for more recommendation

Those are stereo soundcards. You'd need a breakout box to accomodate six RCA connectors for output. Those interfaces are outside your budget and have large jack connections.

Why not connect your card to your system using an SPDIF or Coaxial cable and select audio output as Digital Output Only? That way you don't have to worry about any of this analog stuff at all, and any card with digital out will do. It will get decoded and passed along as PCM, if it's a stereo mp3 it will go through as stereo PCM, if it's a multi channel aac (in a movie) it will go through as multichannel PCM, and if its a DD or DTS it will be passed through. A win win, I would think.

I see. Just to confirm, if i connect the system to a stereo sound card via RCA or a Y-adapter, will I still get a stero effect?



I don't really understand bout the terms.. but how do I go about doing it?

Are you sure it doesn't have to be transcoded into AC3? Apparently there are electrical SPDIF interfaces accepting 192k (enough bandwidth for 4.0), but is there really a multichannel PCM standard?


You will only get stereo, not surround.

Why don't you concentrate on selecting the soundcard based on its functions and quality and just get apropriate cables afterwards?

Yes, multichannel PCM has to be transcoded to AC3 when sent over SPDIF.
SPDIF is designed for 2 channel audio with maximum bitdepth of 24 bits.

Bleh, sorry about that misinformation, I forgot my sound card has DD Live! thing, that's why it works. (driver support for my card is crap, so I won't recommend it)

I will settle for a stereo setup
Please recommend me on the stuff to buy.
Since RCA connection can be overcome with a y-adapter with no cost of quality, the connection isn't a problem now.

----

What are the cables that u are talking about?



Thanks!

The ones from your soundcard to the amplifier.

Oh I see.
Can recommend me the things that i need to get now for a good stereo setup?

You are such a great help~

Check out the ESI Juli@

http://www.esi-audio.com/products/julia/

Other than that? any other sound card? I guess RCA connection or not doesnt matter right?

Actually, what inputs do you have on this speaker set?

I looks as if it was 5.1 set with (presumably) both multichannel analog and digital inputs but on the page you linked there is only one stereo input. Copy-pasted:

Audio in/out Inputs AUX1
Outputs -
Multi ch in -
Multi ch out -

This is strange, I doubt this specs are correct, I mean it does not make sense?



For music and movies Sound Blaster X-Fi might be an option, too. Unlike professional equipment (Esi, E-Mu, RME etc) sound blasters are consumer electronics ==> manufactured in mass quantities ==> they are much cheaper but usually decent quality.

You do not have audiophile speakers or professional audio monitors. There is little point getting an overkill audiophile or professional sound card for them as it is likely to have no impact. Actually - it might have an adverse effect as it would reveal weaknesses of speakers. I'd say check X-Fi for it might be exactly what you are looking for. Especially for its dynamics enhancers (24-bit Crystallizer).

But first verify what you can connect to your speakers and only then decide

Good Luck

From my experience owning a professional grade hardware in many cases enables you to look from above at the "consumers". It's not always like that but most of the time:

- Professional gives you control (as with E-MU),
- p/ does not suffer from lack of power/resources (as with network routers),
- p/ does not have as many artificial restrictions in place (SCMS, seems not an issue anymore also with Xi-Fi),
- p/ is not bloated with negative or useless eye-candy functions (as with business laptops, or the Crystalizer mentioned by you).

I agree with this. I'd just get a decent sound card that has digital output, and connect that to your receiver, and let the receiver do the processing of the digital signal. I'd recommend the M-Audio Revolution 5.1. It handles up to 5.1 sound (obviously), it has a digital coax audio out, and is about 70 bucks. Plus, its components are better than Creative's Audigy 2 series, and most likely also of higher quality than the lower-end X-Fi, and I can vouch that it has better sound quality than the Audigy 2 ZS, as I've owned both cards for a significant period of time. (Sorry if I missed something in one of the posts, I just read the first handful and replied, honestly). It still has SRS effects (3D/Circle Surround, etc.), and allows for phase adjustments based on speaker distances (though I'm unsure if these features are supported when using the digital output). Also, it supports EAX (up to 3.0, I think...not the most recent version though IIRC), if you're interested in gaming.

It's also worth noting that the Revolution 5.1 uses the Envy24 chipset (albeit the GT version, as compared to the HT), and the AKM-4358 D/A converter (only matters if you choose to use analog out). These are the same (or very similar, in the case of the Envy24 chipset) parts that are found in the ESI Juli@ card that's mentioned above. However, the Revo supports full 5.1 surround sound, whereas the Juli@ only supports 2-channel stereo. I think you'd be defeating the purpose of your 5.1 Cinema system if you got a card that only transfers a stereo signal. And, as mentioned above, you don't have a super high-end set of speakers, so I bet the extra cash that would've been spent on a professional-grade sound card could be better put to use elsewhere.

Here's a thorough review of the Revo 5.1 if you're interested:
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/multim...volution51.html

THe connections if you are taking the analog out is not that crucial since there are adaptors, but the Juli@ includes both RCA and balanced TRS connector options.

You could look at the EMu 1212 it is similiarly priced and many like its sound.

I think though that the JULI@ will be much easier to set up and get listening. THe Emu is probably more flexible for "pro" stuff, but it doesn't sound like you will be doing much of that.

Here is a review that compares the Juli@ to some other cards (even my Lynx 2) and well read for yourself:

http://www.ixbt.com/multimedia/esi-juli@-en.shtml

You'd have to have a seriously crappy sound system or have an extremely wacky sense of judging what is good sound to see the crystalizer as an enhancement. Calling it a dynamics enhancer is seriously overstating it's capabilities and buying into the marketing hype... calling it a digital loudness button is more realistic.

This is true only if you decide to use it at 100% setting. Which is a silly thing to do with any setting on any hardware, usually. Do you think reverbs are bad based on how you can mess up vocals when having only wet signal or are compressors bad because you can squash signal with 1:24 ratio ? It is strange way of looking at things to say at least.

I was only saying with consumer grade speakers such as Samsung ones the crystallizer can expand dynamics which might sound nice. It is a different sense of "nice" from having a pro card and apogee speakers but it comes with a different price tag, too.

EDIT: I use X-Fi.

Ideally:
A)7.1 Analog outputs with rca and 192kHz/24bit high-grade converters. Not because anyone really needs it, but because it is technically possible, and there is content out there.

B) HDMI output, again with 8 channels of hirez LPCM (and bitstream of new BluRay/HD-DVD hirez formats as a bonus)

C) Bass management.

D) Common clock crystal for audio and video and a single HDMI connector. Meaning that perfect lip sync is guaranteed by hardware, and not by audio resampling or video framedropping.

Why is this so difficult for manufacturers, and why do they keep bugging us with "crystaliser mp3 enhancer" and all kinds of unwanted crap instead?

-k

A.
The 7.1 analog audio output via RCA jacks would take up a lot of space, and would necessitate the need for a breakout box or some sort of odd adapter. You can just buy 1/8" to RCA adapters or cables and get the same thing.

B and D.
The HDMI and common A/V clock crystal would require integrating the audio and video signals together, so the sound and graphics card would most likely have to be combined*. That is a huge change in PC architecture, unless onboard sound and video were used. Then I could see that being a possibility; a very logical one too, except that usually people don't use the speakers in their monitor or TV to play the audio, so the signal would just have to be split again, unless you fed it into an A/V receiver...except now we're talking about the HTPC market, which is a small minority of PC users, so I don't think the cost of redesigning the parts would be re-couped. But again here, you can use a DVI to HDMI adapter, and use the digital coax or toslink for audio. Sending audio over HDMI hasn't fully caught on yet anyway, IMO.

C.
As for bass management, my M-Audio Revolution 5.1's software offers it. I can set crossover frequency and speaker size, and send bass to only the sub or both the sub and main speakers.

Not all manufacturers bug you with a million useless "enhancements"...just Creative. The only useless thing (IMO) that my Revo 5.1 has are the SRS features. No included media player, or stupid sound effects that make it sound like you're in a dungeon by screwing with the phase delays, or 5-6 convoluted options screens, etc. But even with my Revo, I could see the usefulness of one of the 2 SRS features, because it converts stereo to 5.1, which could be useful for listening to music on a 5.1 setup (the other option simulates surround sound with a stereo setup...I've listened to it, and don't care for it). I did use one feature on my old Audigy 2 ZS...the parametric EQ. It gave a lot of control over the sound, but the UI could've been better. Now that I have decent speakers, I have no need for an EQ though...but I did need the bass management (and wanted a card that didn't resample everything to 48kHz), which is why I got the M-Audio.

* They actually do sell breakout boxes that will combine a DVI video and digital coax audio signal into a combined HDMI signal...but the box I saw had an MSRP of $300, which I feel is really steep considering you don't get any extra image or audio quality; you simply need one less cable running to the TV/receiver. Here's a link to one: http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=3570 I feel sorry for the people that think they need that to connect their PC to a TV or receiver.

what about the latest generation of videocard with HDMI output, they often have a sound integrated onto the same card. Do they use a common clock crystal? Framedrops are the one thing that makes me prefer a non-PC videoplayer over my HTPC.

Honestly, I wasn't aware that they fed an audio signal through the HDMI output on those, I thought it was video only. I know I looked around for cards with a true HDMI output, and found one or two of them (new Geforce 9600GT's IIRC, didn't check ATI/AMD).

That would be great.

My audio needs are simple, no need for a large number of specialised circuits.

A GPU with a single clock, 2x HDMI, one for my receiver and one for my LCD with LPCM hirez 7.1 and simple bass-management would be perfect.

Of course, jitter could be a problem with a non-audiophile GPU card with a crystal and compromises, coupled to a HDMI surround-receiver, but I am willing to take a bet that it would be the single best improvement for BluRay/HD-DVD that my PC-based system could have right now.

-k

Video jitter is indeed the only area where PC performs poorly compared to analogue video gear. But switching to ATI's HDMI videocards would require purchasing additonal hardware (the receiver) to connect to "legacy" DVI monitor and audio amplifier.


It caused me considerable confusion when Realtek driver did not want to install on the "Audio device on HDA bus" and caused bluescreen. As it turned out HD 2xxx Radeons now also have an "audio device".

Is the DVI-HDMI output on modern videocards HDCP-free by default?

What a coincidence, I actually just started looking into HDCP compliance this morning, as I'm looking into building an HTPC as my next computer. I admittedly don't know much at all about it, but I do know there are several HDCP-compliant video cards on the market...therefore I'd assume the majority of cards aren't HDCP compliant (which could result in playback issues with DRM "protected" sources, right?) . Maybe that helps.