I have a new fizzing pc arriving soon for working from home. I'm giving my son my i7 workstation and I'm going to nick his old pc as I've upgraded a lot of things in that box and I plan to use it as a htpc. At the moment I use plex from my workstation to the telly and I have a yamaha soundbar. I'm constantly going up and down with the remote. I can't hear the voices without turning it up and then boom some action comes in.
I'm not sure what I need in terms of being able to do this. My current tv is hd and has plenty of hdmi inputs so that's not a problem (but I may upgrade the telly). What I'm trying to figure out is the sound output from the pc. On my workstation I run a optical line to a box and then to my mackie 5 monitors. Audio in windows is fine but via jriver is incredible. If my son's box has optical, do I just do the same thing into a receiver or but a new one with optical? Do I need a sound card that has 5.1 out the back?
Once I get the connections all sorted out, I'll then focus on speakers. I'm looking to get wired fronts and then wireless centre and rear or at least a wireless centre speaker. I don't need a tripping hazard walking around.
Is this a stupid idea or does anyone here have experience of doing such a thing?