best way to setup 5.1 computer audio in 2020? HDMI without needing a fake display?

E

echn111

[H]ard|Gawd
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When I initially setup my PC audio a few years ago (for movies, gaming and normal work), the only way to get digital sound was via HDMI to my receiver/amplifier which then connected to my 5.1 speakers. And for this to work, you needed to designate your receiver as a fake extended 2nd monitor. I then moved the fake monitor to the top right of my main display to get it out of the way.

Not the best solution as there are some games where I actually need to move the mouse to the top right, which doesn't work because that's taken by the fake monitor display, and it puts a bit more pressure on my GPU... But my main monitor is 3440 x 1440, so pass through from my receiver doesn't seem to work. I could go analogue and use 5 cables from my motherboard to my receiver, but that requires 5 cables instead of 1 HDMI cable - perhaps this might be better?

It's been a long time since I looked at audio, but would like to know if things are better now. Is there a better way to setup 5.1 computer audio in 2020, ideally without having to setup a fake 2nd monitor display?
 
That's honestly as good as it's going to get. Would be really nice if GPU manufacturers supported 'audio output only' for receivers over HDMI, but it's also an understandably niche use case.

The only other decent option is to get a USB sound card and go analog to your receiver like you suggest. This is the point where Creative products actually make a bit of sense these days, as they have inexpensive solutions with decent drivers.

The Sound Blaster Omni supports 5.1 analog output and is older but appears to have aged well; the Sound Blaster X3 just came out and supports 7.1, but appears to have a few rough edges.

Rough edges aside, the complaints I see in the X3 reviews look to be mostly corner cases or user error, so I'd probably go that way myself, but either look like they will work.


As an aside: while you have 5.1 speakers and I do get the draw, many / most underestimate just how good a pair of decent speakers can be if properly placed.
 
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That's disappointing. After all these years, I still need to create a fake extended display, which messes with my mouse movements in that part of the screen, just to get normal 5.1 sound. I'm tempted to go with analogue, but that means 5 cables instead of 1 and I lose out on DTS/Dolby Digital when watching movies and not sure if my ITX boards have enough space. (but will check later)...

I don't see why my setup is considered to be a "niche use case". Having a reciever/amplifier connecting to speakers/subwoofer is the standard way of having 5.1 sound in pretty much any home setup - in fact I thought it's the most popular 5.1 option used by hundreds of thousands of people. The only difference is that I have it connected to my computer, but don't see why having a normal computer connected to the standard 5.1 setup should be a rare niche case...
 
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With 5.1, short of some "niche cases," S/PDIF works well enough (IMO). It's what I use for my PC --> Receiver.
 
jeremyshaw said:
With 5.1, short of some "niche cases," S/PDIF works well enough (IMO). It's what I use for my PC --> Receiver.
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S/PDIF might work. My M/B doesn't seem to have it. How have you got S/PDIF connected from your PC?
 
I think this might be the solution: to use pre-HDMI old tech to get around the limitations of HDMI.

That whole discussion around S/PDIF brings back memories.... I vaguely recall why I went HDMI when I got my 5.1 audio setup several upgrades ago: it was cause the going fad at the time was BluRay and high definition audio like Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio. And back then, HDMI just came out and was the only way to do this and supposedly "the future" over old tech like S/PDIF.... But it's 2020, streaming is the future, and I don't even use BluRay any more, much less high definition audio. And the only way to use HDMI for 5.1 audio in 2020 is still to create a fake 2nd monitor, which sounds ludicrous but...

Unfortunately I replaced that board and need to update my sig. Fortunately, I'm upgrading again, and will look for S/PDIF on my new board.
 
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You can also use a TV for your monitor, and if the receiver and TV all support ARC/eARC, then the TV will do the heavy lifting of getting 5.1/7.1 audio from your PC and pushing it to your receiver.

People seem mixed on how effective it is (also problems with getting ARC/eARC to work as advertised, along with feature fragmentation and vendor lock in). Additionally, up until very recently, decent TV sets for PC use didn't really exist. Even with the LG C9/CX OLED, there are still problems with burn in, which goes against my usual 7-10+ year cycle of monitor/TV use.

Reportedly, latency problems, too, with eARC.

I am not able to verify any of this.
 
echn111 said:
I think this might be the solution: to use pre-HDMI old tech to get around the limitations of HDMI.

That whole discussion around S/PDIF brings back memories.... I vaguely recall why I went HDMI when I got my 5.1 audio setup several upgrades ago: it was cause the going fad at the time was BluRay and high definition audio like Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio. And back then, HDMI just came out and was the only way to do this and supposedly "the future" over old tech like S/PDIF.... But it's 2020, streaming is the future, and I don't even use BluRay any more, much less high definition audio. And the only way to use HDMI for 5.1 audio in 2020 is still to create a fake 2nd monitor, which sounds ludicrous but...

Unfortunately I replaced that board and need to update my sig. Fortunately, I'm upgrading again, and will look for S/PDIF on my new board.
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even if it doesnt have a spdif port on the back io look for one with a header, usually down in the corner and usually listed in the specs. i bought a asus universal spdif board/pci bracket on amazon and have used it on several different brands.
 
echn111 said:
but that means 5 cables instead of 1 and I lose out on DTS/Dolby Digital when watching movies and not sure if my ITX boards have enough space.
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One -- exactly one -- USB cable.

You can run that to the USB sound card, which then has a few cables run to your receiver. Also, the USB sound card will absolutely decode surround codecs for you.

As for SP/DIF, the issue is that more than two channel output requires encoding into surround codecs on the PC, and then decoding on the receiver. This will add audio lag, which is undesirable. Perhaps unnoticeable for movies, but it is certainly an issue for gaming.
 
echn111 said:
When I initially setup my PC audio a few years ago (for movies, gaming and normal work), the only way to get digital sound was via HDMI to my receiver/amplifier which then connected to my 5.1 speakers. And for this to work, you needed to designate your receiver as a fake extended 2nd monitor. I then moved the fake monitor to the top right of my main display to get it out of the way.
Click to expand...

HDMI emulator plug + display manager software that keeps everything on your primary monitor only?

I use a plug in the receiver's out and just duplicate the fake monitor with my real 2nd monitor.
 
I don't use 5.1 with my gaming computer, as I honestly believe it's actually worse than simply using a good set of headphones - which only requires stereo.

For my my home theater, I found that using a mix of S/PDIF and plugging the 7.1 analog outputs from my soundcard into the 7.1 analog inputs of my receiver gives me the best experience. I use the digital (S/PDIF) input to pass 2.0 PCM or traditional Dolby Digital-EX / DTS-ES. For any newer codecs, I switch to the analog connection and let my soundcard handle the decoding instead. That has an added benefit for me because my Pioneer Elite receiver is an older model that can't decode the newer codecs anyway, but is still a fantastic receiver otherwise. With this config I can play anything and should be good to go for many more years.

Yeah it's a lot of cables, but you should only have to deal with it once and then you will be set for a long time. How often are you connecting and disconnecting cables that it's so important to only have 1 cable?
 
GotNoRice said:
I don't use 5.1 with my gaming computer, as I honestly believe it's actually worse than simply using a good set of headphones - which only requires stereo.
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You probably have not played games that had 5.1 surround sound implemented propely, like Battlefield series.
Even World of Warcraft does amazing surround sound.
 
I search this topic occasionally to see if anything changed and found that LG makes a UHD Blu-ray player that has two HDMI ports, one for audio+video and one that's audio-only: https://www.lg.com/us/home-video/lg-UBK90-blu-ray-player

I assume that's for compatibility since many people probably have an AVR that can do most/all the current audio formats, but can't pass 4K to their 4K TV. I wonder if they've just duplicated the output or if there's really an image transmitted if connecting a display to the AVR. Regardless, nice to see that somewhere, but I'm not optimistic that it'll become a thing.
 
ashmelev75 said:
You probably have not played games that had 5.1 surround sound implemented propely, like Battlefield series.
Even World of Warcraft does amazing surround sound.
Click to expand...

Actually I've played plenty. My comment was not intended as a remark about the quality of 5.1+ sound in games, though in retrospect I probably should have done a better job clarifying that. I meant to say that that I don't think 5.1 speakers are better than a good pair of headphones for gaming. I have my computer setup for 7.1, and use CMSS-3D on my X-Fi Titanium in conjunction with my headphones to deliver that positional audio. The 5.1/7.1 channel output from the game is absolutely being put to good use, but the output from my X-Fi soundcard to my external DAC is PCM transmitted over optical S/PDIF; no HDMI required.

It's important to remember that when you listen to speakers, the room you are in, and the resulting reflections of sound off walls and objects has a tremendous impact on what you hear and how your mind perceives accurate positional audio information. Most people aren't gaming in an anechoic chamber. Ambient noise can also interfere. Headphones take care of both of those issues simultaneously. To be clear, I'm not saying anyone's preference is wrong, I was simply expressing mine. I do prefer speakers for movies.
 
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To the OP, that's about as good as it gets today unless you happen to have a super expensive premium receiver with multichannel analog inputs.
 
PCMusicGuy said:
To the OP, that's about as good as it gets today unless you happen to have a super expensive premium receiver with multichannel analog inputs.
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Or an old one!

At this point, you're just using it as an amplifier; all of the other functions are unused.
 
echn111 said:
That's disappointing. After all these years, I still need to create a fake extended display, which messes with my mouse movements in that part of the screen, just to get normal 5.1 sound. I'm tempted to go with analogue, but that means 5 cables instead of 1 and I lose out on DTS/Dolby Digital when watching movies and not sure if my ITX boards have enough space. (but will check later)...

I don't see why my setup is considered to be a "niche use case". Having a reciever/amplifier connecting to speakers/subwoofer is the standard way of having 5.1 sound in pretty much any home setup - in fact I thought it's the most popular 5.1 option used by hundreds of thousands of people. The only difference is that I have it connected to my computer, but don't see why having a normal computer connected to the standard 5.1 setup should be a rare niche case...
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Blame RIAA/MPAA for the DRM restrictions on the outputs. Their greed has fucked us enthusiasts over many times. They're making it hard for us to enjoy the content just to make a few dollars more. One example was the DVD region zones. Complately useless and stupid restriction preventing people from certain continents watching content limited to some contents. I bought myself a set of old TV shows (Ren & Stimpy and Allo Allo) as a self-Christmas present and if it wouldn't have been the option to rip them as files from DVD, I wouldn't be able to even watch them. 20 years later! And that's why I've boycotted them for many years until the streaming services such as Tidal became available. I'm still left with the annoyance of gimped technology though.
 
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IdiotInCharge said:
Or an old one!

At this point, you're just using it as an amplifier; all of the other functions are unused.
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The best way is to get a cheap line-level head unit from China with hacked outputs and mate it to a multi-channel amplifier. Good ones are hard to find though.
 
GotNoRice said:
Actually I've played plenty. My comment was not intended as a remark about the quality of 5.1+ sound in games, though in retrospect I probably should have done a better job clarifying that. I meant to say that that I don't think 5.1 speakers are better than a good pair of headphones for gaming. I have my computer setup for 7.1, and use CMSS-3D on my X-Fi Titanium in conjunction with my headphones to deliver that positional audio. The 5.1/7.1 channel output from the game is absolutely being put to good use, but the output from my X-Fi soundcard to my external DAC is PCM transmitted over optical S/PDIF; no HDMI required.

It's important to remember that when you listen to speakers, the room you are in, and the resulting reflections of sound off walls and objects has a tremendous impact on what you hear and how your mind perceives accurate positional audio information. Most people aren't gaming in an anechoic chamber. Ambient noise can also interfere. Headphones take care of both of those issues simultaneously. To be clear, I'm not saying anyone's preference is wrong, I was simply expressing mine. I do prefer speakers for movies.
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It's entertaining to read posts from people who actually have a clue on how audio works.
 
B00nie said:
The best way is to get a cheap line-level head unit from China with hacked outputs and mate it to a multi-channel amplifier. Good ones are hard to find though.
Click to expand...
If needing to decode various compression schemes, absolutely. If coming from a soundcard... you already have your head unit ;).
 
Hi, I went through this delema a few years back. Let me break a few things down for you.

HDMI requires a video to be present to carry audio. It is how the standard was speced out.

5.1 from PC HDMI is not Dolby anything. It is 5.1 channels of linear pcm uncompressed audio.

Any spdif connection is 2 channel pcm audio only. If you are getting 5.1 out of spdif, your audio drivers are encoding it into a very lossy Dolby digital ac3 signal. This is called Dolby digital live if memory serves me right.

Using a secondary monitor is less ideal since it always keeps you video card in a dual monitor drive mode.

What I found that works, but is very gehto is to use an old Asus xonar audio card. It is very similar to an old 3dfx card. The card is designed to intercept physically the HDMI signal from your graphics card, remove the audio, and replace it with their audio. The card still won't work without the original HDMI due to the limitations I previously explained.

The gehto portion comes in with an external HDMI analog to HDMI converter. I just plugged that into the xonar to generate a fake HDMI signal and then the sound card replaced the fake signal's audio with the correct audio. This worked flawlessly and was epic.

Now a days, I just run 2.1 with s schit joutenheim. I do miss the 5.1 for games that really did take advantage of it.
 
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