What receiver should I get?

[Ruger22C]

What receiver should I get?
Using it for computer audio, so it belongs here.

The guys over at AVS forum won't help me, despite 3 bumps.

I bought the Klipsch 300 HD.

I have three questions.

One, my cousin says he's having trouble using his PC's equalizer (These will be for the PC, not for my TV.) to control the audio. . . I have an X-Fi card, will I be able to control the frequencies etc. or will the receiver some how over-ride that?

Two, what's the difference between these (other than two of them use 7.1, which I will Probably use via hdmi)?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-238-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-289-_-Product

Three, do you have a better suggestion?

 

[Claudius-07]

My audio from my two computers goes out to my Onkio 605. In one case it's through HDMI, the other is optical. The HDMI setup is obviously going through my video card, video and audio gets sent to the receiver, then the video to my monitor. The other setup it's just audio since my video is going to a dual link DVI since my other monitor is a 30" dell.

Now in both cases I have it set up as simply "pass through". Everything is getting decoded by the receiver. On the computer's side there is nothing... AC3, DTS, whatever, just gets passed to the receiver. No issues on frequencies. In both cases my computer for the first time "queries" the capabilities of my receiver (DTS, DD, TrueHD, DTS-MA etc and the what frequencies it can handle).

Not sure what else to say -- it works and sounds great. It honestly is a bit of overkill, but I upgraded my living room's receiver and speakers about 6 months ago and had this perfect setup and I was not gona get much for selling it used, so now it's in my office.

You can certainly use your X-FI card but you can just as easily use onboard audio or audio from the HDMI part of your video card (depending on which you have).

Briefly looking at the two receivers you linked, other than the 5.1 and 7.1 there seems to be little difference. Generally the difference I look for is the receiver’s capability to setup your speakers automatically – for instance YPAO sound optimization for automatic speaker setup is Yamaha’s but not sure if the two models you linked support that. Some don’t care, others do. They both have 4 HDMI in… so that’s a win. Anyhow for the price of either of the two, you can’t loose.

I am just partial to Onkio, have been for ever so my suggestion would be a bit biased.

 

[ProfJohn]

Check slickdeals.net day after day until something really nice comes up in your price range and jump on it.

At that price point I would expect that any name brand receiver is going to do what you need it to do.

Here is a good one:
http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2679789
Onkyo TX-SR508 7.1-Channel 3-D Ready Home Theater Receiver w/ HDMI 1.4a 3D Ready Inputs $199.97 + Free Shipping

Might have to wait a while before you find other good deals on the lower end stuff though. Most of the action seems to be on the mid range $400-$500 stuff.

 

[ProfJohn]

As for the PC question...

It is most likely a problem with how the signal is outputted from the computer.
Most likely the equalizer only works on signals outputted via the computers speaker outputs and doesn't mess with the rca style sound out or hdmi sound output.

The big question is why would you want to use the computer equalizer anyway when the AVR is going to have a much better and more capable EQ?

 

[Ruger22C]

Because I'm told the receiver doesn't let me set dB level on specific frequencies, i.e. 30, 62, 4k, 8k... and it would be an inconvenience to change it on that little screen with a remote.