Sound Card/Receiver ?

[wllce1314]

I plan on getting a receiver set up and some bookshelves for my PC. My question is how much of a difference will the PC sound card make with this type of set up? Will I be ok with onboard sound or would it be good investment to buy a quality sound card?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

If you're willing to invest in the receiver and speakers, it would probably be a good idea to get a decent soundcard as well unless your specific motherboard has something above average.

What kind of receiver are you getting and how do you plan on hooking it up? What is your source material going to be? (games/movies/music)

This might be of interest to you:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=30&threadid=1940133&enterthread=y

 

[wllce1314]

Ive always love HK's stuff and was beginning my search there. I do a bit of everything with my computer. My breakdown is probably something like this; 50% music, 30% movies, 20 % games. I am open to receivers but would liek to keep it between $200 - $300. This will be my 1st time hooking a receiver to my Comp (finally got tired of crappy PC speaker sound). So any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

My first receiver was an HK and I liked it a lot. I got mine off the ebay seller harmanaudio which is how HK sells their factory refurb units. They give you a new warranty on them.

They also sell refurbs through http://www.harmanaudio.com/

Something like a 135-Z or 235-Z might be a good way to go. You'd get the multichannel analog input you'd want to hook up via analog to get surround sound in games.

If surround sound in games isn't a big deal for you and you could deal with "fake surround" (like PLII), then if your motherboard has digital output that might be a good option. A Chaintech AV-710 would be a good alternative for just digital output without encoding capability.