HELP: With PC 5.1 surround

H

hiflyer727

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Feb 2, 2013
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I have a Dell XPS 8500 with AMD HD Radeon 7570, ASUS DSX Sound card, and the Dayton Audio HTP-2 5.1 with the powered sub. How do I make this setup work as it pertains to what connects to what, and what connectors are required. The sub has High Level Output/High Level Input, and L/R Line in and mono RCA connections (one is red, the other is white)

Or, do I need to purchase an AV receiver for this whole thing? Thanks guys.
 
You need a receiver to power the speakers.

Given the awesome quality of those speakers you can get yourself any base model receiver with 5.1 channels and you will be set.

I paid 140 bucks for a nib vsx 520 last year on ebay.
 
Thank you for your reply. Now, once I get a receiver how should the connections be made. I understand the surround sound speakers connect to the receiver.....The sub will connect to the receiver via the pre amp out/sub out, but where does the pc sound card come into this?
 
Just go digital out from sound card to digital in on the receiver. Either Toslink (optical), or coax will work fine depending on what outputs your sound card has.
 
If your video card has an HDMI output use that instead optical or spdif.

With HDMI you can take advantage of using lossless formats like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD.
 
Last edited:
I really appreciate the input from you guys.....With that said I looked at the specs on the sound card:

S/PDIF Out port Optical TOSLINK digital output port. Connects to external digital
decoder or digital speakers, etc.
S/PDIF Out header Connects to the graphics card with HDMI support.

AMD 7570 My video card has HDMI

So, the ASUS sound card has S/PDIF Optical digital out (3.5mm plug) and
S/PDIF which allows for connection to the
graphics card. (Never saw a connection like that)

AMD 7570 Supports HDMI

How do I connect and with what cables?
 
No need for any of that if you get a receiver that has HDMI inputs/output (most do)

The AMD 7570 has built in audio streaming onboard and can output lossless multi-channel audio directly through the HDMI port with no need for the sound card at all.

Connect the video card to one of the receiver's HDMI inputs and then connect your display to the receiver's HDMI output.
 
Then on the pre out/sub on the rear of the AV receiver I would plug into that with the other end going to the subwoofer Line In (Red female RCA and NOT the White female RCA) ???
 
If your receiver has only a single channel out for the sub but your sub takes in stereo you may have to get a Y cable to combine them.
 
Curious to know if I used the internal S/PDIF header of the sound card, and connected to the video card if I could use the features of the Asus?
 
hiflyer727 said:
Curious to know if I used the internal S/PDIF header of the sound card, and connected to the video card if I could use the features of the Asus?
Click to expand...

You probably could i know some nvidia cards was able to transfer spdif sound over HDMI. But you're still limited by the badwidth of spidf.

If you want the best sound quality possible HDMI is the way to go. If you get a good receiver that supports all the losses codecs, you won't need to use any of the features of your soundcard.

I may be mistaken but I think for a stereo subwoofer the preout from the receiver should go in the white port. I know the old days the white RCA port was meant for mono devices.
 
hiflyer727 said:
Will I need to go into BIOS and disable onboard audio once everything is connected?
Click to expand...

You don't have to, you can have multiple sound devices in windows. You just have make the device you want to use the default. But if you want to disable so just its hidden it won't hurt anything would be about preference.
 
hiflyer727 said:
Then on the pre out/sub on the rear of the AV receiver I would plug into that with the other end going to the subwoofer Line In (Red female RCA and NOT the White female RCA) ???
Click to expand...

Usually that's the case, it depends on your subwoofer.

On the Dayton Audio (PartsExpress) subs you usually plug it into the RED jack on the back of the sub. :)
 
hiflyer727 said:
Curious to know if I used the internal S/PDIF header of the sound card, and connected to the video card if I could use the features of the Asus?
Click to expand...

When you use optical you do not benefit from any features of the sound card. You're receiver will be doing all the work.
 
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