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More => Old Versions => Media Center 17 => Topic started by: maid on March 21, 2012, 01:58:29 am

Title: Sound Card or AV
Post by: maid on March 21, 2012, 01:58:29 am

I am curious to get opinions as to which would be better.

A new sound card or new AV amp

as we like to have DTS Dolby sound etc and was thinking of upgrading.

Title: Re: Sound Card or AV
Post by: fitbrit on March 21, 2012, 03:40:06 pm

If your current AV receiver doesn't have discrete multi-channel analog inputs, you will not gain anything from getting a new sound card. You'd be better off getting an AV receiver with HDMI, that can accept and decode a bitstream, or lossless LPCM.

Title: Re: Sound Card or AV
Post by: maid on March 21, 2012, 10:29:04 pm

Not knowing much about AV receivers. can you recommend any without being too expensive.

Title: Re: Sound Card or AV
Post by: SamuelMaki on March 22, 2012, 12:09:12 pm

Quote from: maid on March 21, 2012, 10:29:04 pm

Not knowing much about AV receivers. can you recommend any without being too expensive.

Any hdmi and HD-Audio compatible should be enough... So get the cheapest one :) (And make sure your speakers work with it...). I have just switched from Yamaha rx-v3900 to Onkyo tx-sr309 and I have about same sound quality... Speakers are more important than AVR, so I would suggest you to buy cheapest AVR and invest more to the speakers... I bought my Onkyo for 70€, but I did get special price...

Title: Re: Sound Card or AV
Post by: maid on March 22, 2012, 05:33:06 pm

In Australia the Yamaha rx-v3900 is far more expensive then the Onkyo tx-sr309???

Title: Re: Sound Card or AV
Post by: SamuelMaki on March 22, 2012, 07:49:55 pm

Quote from: maid on March 22, 2012, 05:33:06 pm

In Australia the Yamaha rx-v3900 is far more expensive then the Onkyo tx-sr309???

Yes, it is! I bought mine couple years ago for 2k€... But now I don´t have strong financial position anymore, so I sold it (and my projector, Martin Logan´s and other things...) and I bought cheaper one (Onkyo) to replace it... My advice is, that do not invest for over 500€ AVR, because they are usually the same as below 500€, but have microphonical calibraton (which I can do myself, and it didn´t make any big impact at my living room...). When buying a "low-end" AVR, double check you can put your speakers to it and which ohms it supports... Any AVR which supports HD-audio is really good and if it has hdmi 1.4 (for 3d in the future...) it would be perfect. So, buy the cheapest one :)

Title: Re: Sound Card or AV
Post by: maid on March 22, 2012, 09:20:34 pm

I think we need new Satellite speakers with more ummph.

Ours are 35 watts per channel