5.1 Comp Speakers - Had Enough - Upgrade Assistance Required

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hhara

Gawd
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May 8, 2009
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I have had it with my Logitech Z-5500 speakers. This has been a never ending problem with the front left speaker for at least 5 years now. See this post for details of my issues with the speakers. At this point, I am content with spending a bit more to get a legitimate 5.1 system hooked up to my PC (speakers + amplifier, instead of built in amplifier you find on 5.1 "computer speakers").

Today, newegg is selling the Klipsch HD 500 5.1 system for 280$. I figured I would purchase that and some amplifier in the 150-200$ range. The benefits I see of going this route are..

- Better sound quality
- Much easier troubleshooting. I wont have some amplifier built into the subwoofer that is impossible to fix unless you have a lot of know how or the product is still under warranty.
- I can move this system to my TV later if I want.

I am wondering if you guys think that is a good speaker selection and what amplifier I should pair it with.

I would also be curious if anyone thinks I should stick with 5.1 computer speakers instead of buying a actual home theater system, but I doubt anyone thinks that.

Also - is it worth buying a actual sound card? The last time I bought one was ages ago, before audio out connections were standard on the motherboard. I really hate dealing with my awful/useless Realtek HD Audio drivers for my onboard audio connections.

I really want 5.1 on my computer system and I am not interested in getting anything less (like two bookshelf speakers), even if you think the audio quality is better. I am not an audiophile, but I do like to have nice things.
 
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Consider buying used by Craigslist etc. A used AVR sold for $280 will be much better than a new off-the-shelf $280 AVR.

How do you want to hookup computer to AVR? SPDIF/TOSLINK? Or HDMI? Or analog? HDMI or analog makes life easy, so long as youy monitor is hooked up by HDMI and your reciever does HDMI.

SPDIF/TOSLINK can be a pain depending on the media, since the interface was never designed with 5.1 in mind. If you're gaming, the only way to get 5.1 on SPDIF/TOSLINK is with a soundcard that does DTS or DDL like Xonar DX I believe. Reason being is that uncompressed, SPDIF/TOSLINK can only handle 2-channel stereo in PCM uncompressed mode which is the default Windows does...and 5.1 is only sent over the bus when the media is pre-encoded for compression a la DTS or DDL, such as with DVDs.
 
Skripka said:
Consider buying used by Craigslist etc. A used AVR sold for $280 will be much better than a new off-the-shelf $280 AVR.

How do you want to hookup computer to AVR? SPDIF/TOSLINK? Or HDMI? Or analog? HDMI or analog makes life easy, so long as youy monitor is hooked up by HDMI and your reciever does HDMI.

SPDIF/TOSLINK can be a pain depending on the media, since the interface was never designed with 5.1 in mind. If you're gaming, the only way to get 5.1 on SPDIF/TOSLINK is with a soundcard that does DTS or DDL like Xonar DX I believe. Reason being is that uncompressed, SPDIF/TOSLINK can only handle 2-channel stereo in PCM uncompressed mode which is the default Windows does...and 5.1 is only sent over the bus when the media is pre-encoded for compression a la DTS or DDL, such as with DVDs.
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Thanks for this information - I was unaware. I am planning on using it for gaming and I was just going to to hook up the receiver to the optical out on my motherboard. It looks like that is not the way to go in order to obtain 5.1

Can you go into more detail about how I would hookup the connections via HDMI in order to obtain the 5.1 signal? In terms of sending the audio signal from my PC to the reciever, the only HDMI option I have is from my GTX 580. That inst suitable to carry a 5.1 signal is it? Analog/HDMI make life easy because it allows the receiver to do the translation to 5.1?
 
If you hunt around on classifieds enough you can sometimes score some great deals.

Earlier this year I responded to an ad for a receiver and speakers with the description "speaker and subwoofer work good for TV move ok denon"

So for $100 I ended up with a Denon AVR-1404 with 5 Mission surround speakers and a Mission sub along with several quality cables (RCA, toslink, subwoofer cable with a Y splitter) and 4 nice speaker stands.

The Denon has no HDMI so I have to run 5.1 with my toslink or digital coax out from my sound card.

It's been working great for me but I'd suggest getting a newer receiver that will be able to pass video and audio through HDMI.

Hunting around for electronics gear on classified sites or thrift shops can be hit or miss so getting something new with a warranty is a safe way to go.
 
hhara said:
Thanks for this information - I was unaware. I am planning on using it for gaming and I was just going to to hook up the receiver to the optical out on my motherboard. It looks like that is not the way to go in order to obtain 5.1

Can you go into more detail about how I would hookup the connections via HDMI in order to obtain the 5.1 signal? In terms of sending the audio signal from my PC to the reciever, the only HDMI option I have is from my GTX 580. That inst suitable to carry a 5.1 signal is it? Analog/HDMI make life easy because it allows the receiver to do the translation to 5.1?
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Odds are your GPU HDMI out will do audio, look in your audio devices in Windows. If you see an HDMI device listed it should work.

HDMI is easier, as HDMI permits PCM in 5.1+ channels uncompressed and direct from Windows. No need for DTS or DDL or any other encoding. Anything with 2.1+ channels will work natively with no voodoo in Windows including games. I believe you would need to connect Computer to AVR by HDMI and then AVR to your monitor by HDMI.

The whole DTS and DDL thing came about because the digital SPDIF and TOSLINK standards were designed in the Dark Ages in the early 80s before the MPAA came up with surround sound for the consumer, and were designed to max out their bandwidth under CD-quality 2-channel PCM audio. When Hollywood came up with 2/3/4/5/7.1 for the consumer, they didn't want to reinvent the wheel and kill legacy support by coming up with a new connector, so they kept the connector and used compression voodoo of DDL and DTS to permit the bandwidth bottlenecked SPDIF/TOSLINK to do 5.1....thus the problem we have today of DTS/DDL and Windows in gaming. Because Windows always wants to stream PCM audio by default for everything.

With analog connectors life is easy insofar as there's no codecs...but you have to setup the system so you don't have your computer levels to hot, and causing clipping/going over. But then you're relying on the crappy Realtek DAC on your computer, odds are the DAC on your AVR will be a fair bit better, but you need digital connections to use that.
 
Skripka said:
Odds are your GPU HDMI out will do audio, look in your audio devices in Windows. If you see an HDMI device listed it should work.

HDMI is easier, as HDMI permits PCM in 5.1+ channels uncompressed and direct from Windows. No need for DTS or DDL or any other encoding. Anything with 2.1+ channels will work natively with no voodoo in Windows including games. I believe you would need to connect Computer to AVR by HDMI and then AVR to your monitor by HDMI.

The whole DTS and DDL thing came about because the digital SPDIF and TOSLINK standards were designed in the Dark Ages in the early 80s before the MPAA came up with surround sound for the consumer, and were designed to max out their bandwidth under CD-quality 2-channel PCM audio. When Hollywood came up with 2/3/4/5/7.1 for the consumer, they didn't want to reinvent the wheel and kill legacy support by coming up with a new connector, so they kept the connector and used compression voodoo of DDL and DTS to permit the bandwidth bottlenecked SPDIF/TOSLINK to do 5.1....thus the problem we have today of DTS/DDL and Windows in gaming. Because Windows always wants to stream PCM audio by default for everything.
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I see. I currently have my GTX 580's hdmi slot occupied by my Samsung PN58C7000 TV, which caries an audio signal but its just outputting the audio on the tv's built in speakers, so whether or not it is capable of doing 5.1 is beyond me. I guess the answer to that will determine if I need to buy a sound card or not.

This can get very confusing fast, since I have to incorporate my TV into the equation.
 
So just to summarize..

Assuming I dont want to send the signal through my video card and in order to obtain working 5.1 from my PC source I would need to purchase a sound card to encode the audio signal as 5.1?

Lets just assume the hdmi signal on my gtx580 doesnt exist, since I dont feel like messing with my connection to my TV, and I dont have any analog audio connections (that I am aware of) on my Asus P6T motherboard.
 
hhara said:
So just to summarize..

Assuming I dont want to send the signal through my video card and in order to obtain working 5.1 from my PC source I would need to purchase a sound card to encode the audio signal as 5.1?

Lets just assume the hdmi signal on my gtx580 doesnt exist, since I dont feel like messing with my connection to my TV, and I dont have any analog audio connections (that I am aware of) on my Asus P6T motherboard.
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All the P6T boards have analog outs as well as SPDIF/TOSLINK, the analog-outs are the 3.5mm stereo mini jacks on your I/O panel. ;) To connect those to an AVR, you'll need some 3.5mm->RCA cables. Most AVRs don't accept 3.5mm input.

The big reason not to use your onboard TOSLINK/SPDIF is if you're gaming and want surround sound...as Windows will output the gaming audio in PCM, and onboard most of the time cannot do the live encode to DTS or DDL. If you're not gaming save your money and just use onboard SPDIF/TOSLINK.

I use my Essence STX outputting to 1/4" headphone for mid-fi music, and switch to DTS and output over SPDIF to my AVR for speaker usage in games/movies?etc. Asus Xonar drivers make changing outputs easy.
 
Skripka said:
All the P6T boards have analog outs as well as SPDIF/TOSLINK, the analog-outs are the 3.5mm stereo mini jacks on your I/O panel. ;) To connect those to an AVR, you'll need some 3.5mm->RCA cables. Most AVRs don't accept 3.5mm input.

The big reason not to use your onboard TOSLINK/SPDIF is if you're gaming and want surround sound...as Windows will output the gaming audio in PCM, and onboard most of the time cannot do the live encode to DTS or DDL. If you're not gaming save your money and just use onboard SPDIF/TOSLINK.

I use my Essence STX outputting to 1/4" headphone for mid-fi music, and switch to DTS and output over SPDIF to my AVR for speaker usage in games/movies?etc. Asus Xonar drivers make changing outputs easy.
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Looks like getting a sound card is the easiest and most sure fire way to go. Thanks a lot for your help!

Now I just need to find a relatively cheap card and amplifier that fits the bill.
 
I have been researching for about 3 hours so far. I decided I am going to go with this receiver.

It is probably overkill for this specific application, but I think it will fit the bill in the future if I decide to use it for my TV.

After some research it appears that the GTX 580 can pass up to a 7.1 signal over hdmi. So I should be able to get 5.1 surround sound by outputting the audio through my GTX 580's hdmi cable, which will then lead into one of the receiver's hdmi inputs. From there the receiver will delegate the audio to the speakers and the video signal from the hdmi out to an hdmi cable plugged into my 3008wfp.

Some cable accessories I appear to need:
- Speaker wire
- Cable from sub to amplifier for pre-out connection.
- banana plugs (for convenience)

Hopefully that all sounds correct. Let me know if there is anything else I am missing.
 
One thing you need to look into before purchasing a receiver is if it will support a resolution over 1920x1080 (since your monitor is well over that). I've been researching this for a few days and can't seem to find anyone reporting success with a resolution over 1920x1080. It appears most receivers (even high end) can't handle anything higher and you get no video or audio. Anyone know which receivers can support this, if any? I really want to get a new receiver and hook my 5.1 system up through HDMI also, but my monitor is 1920x1200.
 
Quote from Onkyo's web site on the model TX-NR609 :

Six HDMI inputs - including one on the front panel - provide support for 3D video and ultra-high resolution 4K video upscaling via the cutting-edge Marvell Qdeo processing technologies.
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Skripka said:
That is upscaling, not necessarily native. I presume they mean upscaling 4K from 1080.
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Quoting the manual :

3840 × 2160 24/25/30 Hz upscaled
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It might not support a pure 4k resolution signal but it'll upscale to that which is better than many receivers in that price range.
 
Godmachine said:
Quoting the manual :



It might not support a pure 4k resolution signal but it'll upscale to that which is better than many receivers in that price range.
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So they half the framerate in order to double the the number of dots...does not seem like an acceptable solution for PC gaming.
 
Skripka said:
So they half the framerate in order to double the the number of dots...does not seem like an acceptable solution for PC gaming.
Click to expand...

Its not really but in order to support near 4k resolution with a 60hz refresh rate it would require 2 HDMI cables instead of one so dual channels. And it isn't designed with PC gaming in mind its designed with 24hz in mind because the vast majority of movies run at 24 frames a second.

Either way no receiver supports resolutions above 1080p without scaling.
 
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