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Need Help choosing a Sound Card

I've been out of the soundcard loop for a while but it seems like you are looking for something with Dolby Digital Live encoding. Some of the others here will probably give you some good suggestions.
 
you won't get 7.1 via S/PDIF, at all

Dolby Digital Live as astrallite mentioned, or DTS Connect would get you 5.1 via S/PDIF

the HDMI Asus and Auzen cards may drive 7.1 L-PCM, but honestly I wouldn't spend $200 just to have digital 7.1, when you can get an analog support card for $80-$90 at the same quality level with the same processing features

that said, I'd look at the HT Omega Striker, Auzen X-Plosion, Asus Xonar D1 or DX, Turtle Beach Montego DDL, or Creative X-Fi Titanium, all of these cards feature DDL, and almost all of them DTS:C; which will give you 5.1 via S/PDIF, they also all feature 7.1 analog output, which is a solid solution for what you'd like to do (you can't seriously tell me an Elite doesn't have analog line-ins)

if you just want to pay >twice as much for whatever reason, the Auzen X-Fi HomeTheatre HD or Asus Xonar HDAV1.3 Deluxe offer HDMI outputs, and I'm fairly sure they'll do 7.1 L-PCM via that, they're both ~$200, there is an Asus HDAV1.3 thats around $140-$150, but it has very limited input options, so I'd probably pass on that
 
Thanks for the replies guys.

Yeah, I know I can't get 7.1 through S/PDIF.
7.1 isn't must have anyway & I have it on my PS3.
I've just always used S/PDIF for PC audio.
Maybe thats my problem.
I do have multi channel inputs on my avr.
It may seem strange to you but I never thought about connecting it that way.
What type of cables would I use to connect to the back of the PC?
They look smaller than audio cables.
 
MAULxx said:
Thanks for the replies guys.

Yeah, I know I can't get 7.1 through S/PDIF.
7.1 isn't must have anyway & I have it on my PS3.
I've just always used S/PDIF for PC audio.
Maybe thats my problem.
I do have multi channel inputs on my avr.
It may seem strange to you but I never thought about connecting it that way.
What type of cables would I use to connect to the back of the PC?
They look smaller than audio cables.
Click to expand...

you'll either want S/PDIF for 5.1 (which would work just fine, if you're ok with that, your receiver will very likely resample this to 7.1 if you want, I doubt if it'll sound very natural though) or 4x TRS 3.5mm to stereo RCA cables of appropriate length to connect your soundcard's 7.1 output to your receiver's multi-ch inputs

it'll probably cost a bit more to get the 4 TRS cables than a single coax cable, but you'll have discrete 7.1 (which will only matter in games)
 
So your saying that with a sound card I could use the S/PDIF for 5.1 but I could have 7.1 (for games) with the 4x TRS 3.5mm to stereo RCA cables?

Would a PCI card support this? I don't have another PCI Express slot.
I'll look at those you posted & do some shopping but what specifically should I be looking for?
DDL & make sure it's PCI, is there anything else?
 
MAULxx said:
So your saying that with a sound card I could use the S/PDIF for 5.1 but I could have 7.1 (for games) with the 4x TRS 3.5mm to stereo RCA cables?

Would a PCI card support this? I don't have another PCI Express slot.
I'll look at those you posted & do some shopping but what specifically should I be looking for?
DDL & make sure it's PCI, is there anything else?
Click to expand...

as I said in my first post, you can only do 5.1 via S/PDIF, if you want 7.1, you need analog outputs (and as I said in my second post, you need 4 cables to accomplish this) or HDMI

you don't need DDL if you're using analog outputs, however all of the boards I suggested do offer DDL regardless, and yes, a PCI card will support this :)confused:)

take a look over the seven I suggested, pick one
 
I like the HT Omega Striker you meantioned but I want to ask about this one.

I know I would use hdmi for this card out to my avr but how does it connect to my GPU to get the audio & video through one hdmi cable?
 
does anyone know the difference between the claro and the striker?
 
MAULxx said:
I like the HT Omega Striker you meantioned but I want to ask about this one.

I know I would use hdmi for this card out to my avr but how does it connect to my GPU to get the audio & video through one hdmi cable?
Click to expand...

you pass the GPU output via HDMI to that card's HDMI input, it adds audio and some "video enhancement" (their language is sorta murky on this) and then passes out via HDMI

jhalf said:
does anyone know the difference between the claro and the striker?
Click to expand...

google is your friend in the future

however, generically, the Claro has the CMI8788 the Striker has the 8770; more compute power/features/quality for the Claro - not necessarily worth the money imho
 
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