Sound Card

[mugs]

Hi all

I recently lost my Asus Xonar HDAV 1.3 Slim sound card. I have a large collection of music in various formats. Blu Ray, DVD-A SACD Flac dts etc. I would like suggestion for computer audio via sound card or possibly video card with sound via HDMI. My current receiver or should i say my preferred receiver has no option for surround via rca I therefore need HDMI from the PC. I need this to be capable of 24 bit 192khz as well as doing surround at 24-96. 5.1 is sufficient. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. If there were a way to convert from the 3.5mm jacks coming from most sound cards to HDMI I might be interested in that as well. Thanks for any input

[Fitzcaraldo215]

HDMI audio output these days is pretty much always "owned by" the video end of things, whether from integrated graphics directly on the mother board or via a separate GPU. I have tried both in my HDMI days, and I thought I heard a slight positive difference when I converted my Windows 7 PC from Intel Integrated Graphics 4000 HDMI to an AMD R9 270 several years ago. But, it was not a difference worth going nuts over.

 

I do not know of HDMI output for audio that exists independent of the graphics output. I also do not know of any meaningful comparisons anywhere of HDMI sonics via different GPU cards. I doubt audio makes much difference based which GPU you use.

 

Video quality was also slightly better via the GPU vs. integrated graphics, though video is less important to me than audio. That comparison was made using JRiver Red October HQ (MadVR) using the GPU hardware acceleration.

 

If using a laptop, you are pretty much limited to integrated graphics HDMI. The GPUs are for PC desktops or towers and they might require more PC power supply wattage, depending.

 

I have since switched entirely to USB audio out into an Exasound e28, which I find considerably better sounding than HDMI audio into my Integra 80.2 prepro. That is costly, I know, but worth it to me in sound quality. It is quite fashionable in most forums to throw rocks at USB. I do not get that, because my sound is really quite extraordinarily good. It was not bad via HDMI/prepro, though, and I used that for several years. I no longer use the prepro at all and my HDMI is used for video only. But, Mch USB DACs like the Exasound are rare.

 

It is an inconvenience, but now all my audio must originate from the PC - NAS or hard drive or internal optical drives. I cannot use an external player for the Mch SACDs I mostly listened to. They must be PS3 ripped to my NAS for playback. I also run TV through the PC via HD Homerun Prime, which is less convenient than a cable box and somewhat more difficult and trickier to set up properly.

 

Some friends use HDMI into Marantz 8801s or Anthem D2Vs in stereo and Mch for NAS playback. They are happy, but I think my USB/Exasound setup sounds a good bit better, especially combined with Dirac Live EQ.

 

One caution on GPUs. I found that Nvidia GeForce cards did not support 88/176 K audio PCM sampling over HDMI when I looked at them. Manufacturer specs curiously do not provide any details like that on audio output via GPUs, and that might or might not have changed more recently. I discovered that issue and used AMD instead. I felt that would be a compromise for playback of SACD converted to PCM which is a requirement for using Dirac. I felt that 88/176 K integer conversion of SACD would be best. I do not use DSD playback of SACD, though I could if I wanted via the Exasound with USB. But, it sounds much better using Dirac in spite of the conversion to PCM.

[mugs]

Thanks for the info. I will look into the USB DAC as well as video cards with decent audio.