Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater running movies + music through computer-possible??

i was wondering if it was possible to run my collection of saved music and movies through a reciever? i have a pretty good sound card right now (SB Live!value) but will buy a new sound card if neccesary.

i will have a m22 with 25-31PC sub so i would need a reciever right? Oris it possible to just send the signals to an amp from a PC without a reciever?

It's entirely possible to use the line-out on your sound card to directly feed an amplifier, but feeding a receiver would probably be better. Since you will have a subwoofer, you'll want to have some sort of bass-management which an amp alone cannot provide.

Are you thinking about surround sound or just stereo? If you true 5.1 (or greater) surround sound from your computer, you'll need to get a sound card with a digital output (which is usually Toslink optical).

I would reccommend the Xitel Pro Hifi Link www.xitel.com. The benefit of this device is that you bypass your soundcard by using a USB connection. Then you have 2 options with the Hifi Link: YOu can use it to do the DAC or you can hook it up to a receiver with either an optical or coaxial connection and let your receivers DAC's do the conversion.

When you use a sound card in the computer to process the DAC you are subject to all the electromagnetic interference inside the computer. Moving the conversion outside of the "box" to your receiver provides you with a pure digital connection with no interference.

as an addded bonus, the Pro Hi-fi link comes with 30 feet of optical, coaxial and analog RCA cables, plus the USB cable and the hifi link istelf all for $99.

Check it out, mine works great, the only con is that you have to diable your soundcard (through windows control panel) to activate the hifi link. This only takes 2 seconds and you can change back to your soundcard whenever you want.

you can ,i use my computer for dvd and cd sound because my radeon graphics card is awsome for dvd and i use an audigty 2 for my sound card pluss i got it hooked to my hdtv to boot and i have the sound card hooked up with 6 channel audio to my reciever ,6 wires