HTPC direct to active speakers/power amp and passive speakers

[rpo83]

Hi,

I am trying to find out if you can connect the discrete line level outputs of a sound card directly to active speakers. I see a number of sound cards that now have DD and DTS chips on board, so it seems stupid to only connect via SPDIF/optical to a HT processor! and introduce another component into the mix. I don't see why the PC can't also be a pre-amp, i have done previous systems using USB outboard cards for stereo and they worked great, but there doesn't seem to be any discussion on getting rid of the AV receiver.

I design high end home theatre systems and i don't think it will be very long before we can replace our Lexicon/Theta/Meridian type processors with a quality PC, these processors are virtually PC's anyway, but dont have the agility that a HTPC has, any thoughts would be welcome. I am in the process of designing our stand for CEDIA this year and would love to use a HTPC as we will be running a 2.35:1 constant image height screen and it would be great to run HD straight from the PC. The projector we will use accepts 1080p/24Hz and we hope to have a PS3 with its latet firmware outputting 1080p/24Hz,

I have spoken to a couple of the companies who promote and sell HTPC's and it was useless!!!

Cheers

Steve

[ExtremePC]

Originally Posted by rpo83

Hi,

I am trying to find out if you can connect the discrete line level outputs of a sound card directly to active speakers. I see a number of sound cards that now have DD and DTS chips on board, so it seems stupid to only connect via SPDIF/optical to a HT processor! and introduce another component into the mix. I don't see why the PC can't also be a pre-amp, i have done previous systems using USB outboard cards for stereo and they worked great, but there doesn't seem to be any discussion on getting rid of the AV receiver.

I design high end home theatre systems and i don't think it will be very long before we can replace our Lexicon/Theta/Meridian type processors with a quality PC, these processors are virtually PC's anyway, but dont have the agility that a HTPC has, any thoughts would be welcome. I am in the process of designing our stand for CEDIA this year and would love to use a HTPC as we will be running a 2.35:1 constant image height screen and it would be great to run HD straight from the PC. The projector we will use accepts 1080p/24Hz and we hope to have a PS3 with its latet firmware outputting 1080p/24Hz,

I have spoken to a couple of the companies who promote and sell HTPC's and it was useless!!!

Cheers

Steve

Audio Processing inside a PC never quite sounds right because the insides of a PC are hostile to good quality Audio (external USB too), there is too much other high freq. digital data going on in the PCI bus and or in terms of RF interference. The PC data bus is designed around wait states, for demanding fidelity audio thats just not good enough so we pass it out as a digital stream for an amp to process.

[rpo83]

Hi Extreme pc,

So you are telling me nobody is working on a high end solution Surely USB or firewire could be a viable solution.

If you look at the pro world and what is happening from a capture and mix point of view, pro tools and USB interfaces like Lexicon omega and MBox are everywhere!

Regards

Steve

[DDH]

While I agree with Justin, I also think there is a place for the sort of setup you talk about. I don't think the place is in the home theatre room, but I do think there is a place for it in the standard lounge room.

With active speakers (presuming you are talking speakers with an amplifier but no preamp), the line out feed will be as good as taking the line out feed to the audio input of something like a LCD / Plasma screen using SVGA for the picture signal, something that already works really well for many.

Personally I have a Denon in the home theatre room, and its staying. I am also planning on buidling a box with nothing but a power switch that is a stereo amp with a torroidal transformer (the real key), and placing it smack on top of my HP DC7600, this will run the wall mounted speakers using the "line out" from the MCE.