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[RussellS]

Hi, if possible I would like some advice regarding my audio setup as I am a little confused about the options open to me.

My setup consists of the MC computer feeding video direct to a Plasma 1080p TV via HDMI and the audio fed to a Yamaha A/V receiver via optical S/PDIF and then out to a KEF 5.1 speaker system. Prior to switching to JRiver MC I have always bitstreamed the audio and let the Yamaha receiver decode/process the AC3/DTS audio.

However, I keep seeing posts in these forums saying that bitstreaming is not the recommended way to go and that it is better to let MC decode/process the digital audio stream and to not do any processing on the A/V receiver.
Does this only apply if you are using HDMI to send the processed audio from the PC to the receiver because HDMI supports multi channel PCM audio. Obviously, with my optical S/PDIF connection I cannot send multi channel and am limited to two channel PCM.

So, am I better sticking to bitstreaming my audio in order to get the propper 5.1 sound as the only other way I could see of doing it would be to process the audio in MC and then re-encode to 5.1 AC3 in the MC 'DSP & Output Format' options.

Would this give any better sound quality as I've always considered the Yahaha DSP processing to be quite good but that may only be because I've not had anything better to compare it with.


If anyone could ease my confusion I would be very grateful.


Russell

[Ancient_Audiophile]

You said:
"However, I keep seeing posts in these forums saying that bitstreaming is not the recommended way to go and that it is better to let MC decode/process the digital audio stream and to not do any processing on the A/V receiver."

That comment that you read is either a) taken out of a specific context, or b) comes from someone's desire to simplify life by making sweeping generalizations (and there is a huge epidemic of the latter at the moment, including every other area of life).

In terms of audio and sound quality, it all depends on your goal.

If you are listening to music albums, then the best sound quality (within most people's price range) is an Asynchronous USB DAC from the PC feeding analog stereo inputs of a receiver or amplifier.  (IMHO, best results are using ASIO output from MC18, but MC's excellent WASAPI implementation is a close second, and it may depend on your DAC as to what is best.)

If you are watching video, then the atmosphere created by the surround channels, give you that Theater experience, and none of those music DACs have more than two channels (at this point), so bitstreaming the Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1 (or 7.1) directly to an A/V receiver is best.

If you are watching a Blu-Ray, and your A/V receiver supports 6 or 8 channels of lossless sound and has HDMI, and your PC supports multichannel lossless audio through HDMI, then in order to get lossless sound quality for your movies, you need to connect your PC to your A/V receiver with HDMI, and adjust MC18 accordingly.

However, the latest version of MC18 added a new feature called ZoneSwitch, which has an easy setup so that music albums play through a stereo DAC, video plays through SP/DIF with bitstreaming, and blu-rays can use HDMI - each has a separate "Zone" and simple rules determine the Zone that is used.

[RussellS]

So basically, working within the limitations of my equipment, namely the lack of HDMI inputs on my A/V receiver, then I'm better off sticking to bitstreaming AC3/DTS from MC to the receiver using S/PDIF.

I havn't even really started to get to grips with the stereo music side of things yet and am still using the defaults.


Thanks for your advice

[Ancient_Audiophile]

So basically, working within the limitations of my equipment, namely the lack of HDMI inputs on my A/V receiver, then I'm better off sticking to bitstreaming AC3/DTS from MC to the receiver using S/PDIF.

The exception to that rule would be if your Media PC's sound card's internal DAC was better than the A/V receiver's DAC AND the PC has six analog outputs AND the A/V receiver has six analog inputs, which is very unlikely that all three are true.