Sound Agvice

[one30eight]

I just built a new computer with a DFI ultra d nf4 with the karajan module that uses realtek 850. The board I had before was the DFI nf2 with soundstorm. I am using a yamaha 6.1 channel receiver and letting it do all of the decoding and whatnot. I am running out of the the boards spdif into the digital in on my receiver. On the nf2 board with the soundstorm, this worked great. On the new setup, it works but not nearly as good. I am wanting to go analog out into the receiver now and see if thats any better. What I am wondering is, what is the optimal setup for me? I have been thinking about buying a sound card. If I did this could I bypass the receivers functions and use it strictly for an amp? or should I get a cheapo sound card and use the receiver to decode? Thanks

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Are you wanting to do gaming on this?

 

[mwmorph]

it it a higher end reciever? a decent reciever will be better than a really good sound card. of course if you want say EAX(for games) or CMSS you ned a audigy and just let the reciever amp it but ifyou listen to music and movies, i'd think the reciever would be better off with that since audigys(at least the 1 and 2, not sure about xfi) tend to be slightly bass heavy for some reason, distorting music oh so slightly.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Well, I think I'm going to bed.

one30eight, what isn't working on your board that soundstorm was better at.

Naturally soundstorm was a DDL part so you're not going to get 5.1 digitally from games with this digital sound.
If you're not talking about gaming as the problem though is it something else? Just generally sounds crappy or something?

If you want the receiver to do the decoding and only do music/movies, then a Chaintech AV-710 would be a good card.
If you want the same kind of DDL capabilities soundstorm had, then you could get a new DDL card. There are solutions by Turtlebeach, HDA, and a couple others.

If you want to connect in analog you can do that as long as you have 5.1/6.1/7.1 analog input on your receiver. Since you're asking about it, I assume you do.
An Audigy2 would be a good midrange card to try this with.
An X-Fi would be more expensive but if you have some nice equipment hooked up it might be worth it to invest in one.

 

[one30eight]

sorry.. yes gaming mostly is what I do.. it is a couple of years old but is a higher end yamaha.. thanks for the help.. I think I am going to go with the audigy.. I just wasnt sure if I could get full use out of it going into a receiver...

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

I would recommend looking through this thread that I made recently asking people about their A2 to receiver hookups
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=38&threadid=1790256&enterthread=y

If you do bass redirect and then boost the sub signal it seems like it will work fine.

 

[one30eight]

thanks for the link