[Csi]

Alright so about 4 years ago, before I even heard of headfi, I bought Creative's Audigy platinum pro ZS. Little did I know then that this gaming card was not great with music. Anyway I quickly bought Klipsch's Promedia Ultra's 5.1 to take advantage of 5.1 support with the Audigy card.

So I'm looking to upgrade something to make the most out of my speaker setup. Budget probably should not exceed 500 but i'll consider it if it just a spectacular level above the previous top product or is just couple bucks more. I'm also not much of a gamer so I probably won't be looking back at more of creative's crap errr i mean cards.


My current desktop setup for my headphones:
Chaintech AV710 -- Glass Toslink Cable -- Benchmark Dac1 --

So another alternative question is, are there any amps or external soundcards that can connect to the dac1 AND offer speaker 5.1 support?

EDIT: by speaker 5.1 support I am not entirely sure if this means a surround sound system? but at the very least it needs to have at least three 3.5 mm sockets for like rear, front, center speakers....hope that makes sense.

A popular brand on here is e-mu, do all there cards, 0404, 1212, 18xx etc all have the 5.1 support?

Any other alternative heavy weight cards I should consider?

 

[Csi]

^

 

[arterius2]

i think nobody has answered your question simply because what you are asking is a little hard to understand. first of all, you are talking about pc speakers right? using 3.5mm minijacks right? and you want to connect that your dac1? most amps take RCA out, not minijack, so i dunno, but you can take a look at this reciever:
panasonic XR-55 (http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4032234)

this reciever is highly regarded price vs performance you if do a little research u will find that this might suit your need. good luck.

 

[infinitesymphony]

I understand your question, and the answer is no, most pro-audio DACs and other equipment only support two channels, including all of the E-MU products.

As you said, you could attempt a setup in which the two main channels were processed by a high-end DAC and the other channels by the sound card, but this would be a routing nightmare and might not even work. Two-channel DACs don't know what to do when they're sent a multi-channel signal, so it wouldn't just play back the L/R channels in a 5.1 stream.

If you really want surround support for your ProMedia 5.1s, your choices are either a multi-channel sound card like Creative's X-Fi series, or a multi-channel capable preamplifier (or receiver with preamp outputs).

 

[Csi]

Thank you both! I have been spending the last few hours looking at receivers, which seems to be the way to go.
So a multi-channel receiver it is! Unfortunately it seems from my preliminary reading at the avsforum, people have had problems using Promedia 5.1's with a receiver. I'll have to look into this more to really get a good grasp of what my next question will be.....

Does anybody use promedia Ultra 5.1 as their HT too? If so can anybody post their setup?

Silly question but when you see receivers that support 7.1, 6.1 etc. that means they can support any configuration smaller then the one listed right? aka. 7.1 can do 5.1....
Naturally I would assume that it could, the real question is does it just play with the speakers it has but "streams" it in RL at the original 7.1 setting? You just happen to not have the two remaining speakers so it just pretends they are not there?

The following questions should be fairly easily searched, but I'm going to bed so if anybody would want to just fill them in for me when i wake up....hehe

1.Supposedly my chaintech is sending out optically a "perfect" signal to my dac1. If i get a receiver to feed from dac it looks like i'll be using a 1/4th jack to split RCA males or RCA male to RCA male cables. Anybody have suggestions for price breaks or cables themselves? I don't really want the interconnect to be a MAJOR choke point. Then again I guess that is where the bottle necks should be?

2. For those with experience with x-fi series, especially the cards geared for music, and other sound cards.
a. Can anybody tell me how much the upgrade is above the Audigy 2 ZS platinum pro? Please be as detailed as possible.
b. How does x-fi generally compare to the "higher end" sound cards? For the sake of an analogy (i hope i dont' step on any toes and this is a bad analogy but i'm trying to get a sense of magnitude) are we talking about the massive difference between say metro.fi to a e530 or is it smaller like a senn 580 to a 650.



Sigh...more I think about it, the more I'm beginning to realize that I will have to just throw out my speakers and go for some higher end bookshelves. A receiver for some promedia's is beginning to sound silly...I shall sleep on it.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Csi /img/forum/go_quote.gif ...people have had problems using Promedia 5.1's with a receiver.

My guess is that the ProMedias aren't calibrated to accept a unity gain signal from a receiver, which tends to be higher than the level sent from a typical sound card. This can overload the ProMedias' amplifier, causing clipping and distortion. Plus, there's the problem of having two volume knobs: one on the preamplifier and one on the ProMedias (which have another preamplifier and a power amplifier in the subwoofer).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Csi Silly question but when you see receivers that support 7.1, 6.1 etc. that means they can support any configuration smaller then the one listed right? aka. 7.1 can do 5.1.... Naturally I would assume that it could, the real question is does it just play with the speakers it has but "streams" it in RL at the original 7.1 setting? You just happen to not have the two remaining speakers so it just pretends they are not there?

It's a little more complicated than that, but in a good way. 7.1 receivers have support down to 2.0. In the event that you play 7.1 material on a 5.1 setup, a 7.1-capable receiver will intelligently downmix the extra two channels of information into the rest of the speakers you actually have... probably mostly the rears in that case. So, theoretically, you could listen to a 7.1 mix on a 2.0 setup, since everything will be downmixed to the two front speakers, though this might sound pretty jumbled.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Csi 1.Supposedly my chaintech is sending out optically a "perfect" signal to my dac1. If i get a receiver to feed from dac it looks like i'll be using a 1/4th jack to split RCA males or RCA male to RCA male cables. Anybody have suggestions for price breaks or cables themselves? I don't really want the interconnect to be a MAJOR choke point. Then again I guess that is where the bottle necks should be?

Cables are low on the scale as far as improvements go, but I do believe that a quality cable can make a difference. I'll recommend a pair of the Blue Jeans Cable LC-1 RCA interconnects. They're constructed using quality materials and methods, and they aren't overpriced.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Csi Sigh...more I think about it, the more I'm beginning to realize that I will have to just throw out my speakers and go for some higher end bookshelves. A receiver for some promedia's is beginning to sound silly...I shall sleep on it.

I agree. You might as well use the receiver's full capabilities.

If you're still interested in using the computer as its own surround/gaming system and want to use the Klipsch ProMedia 5.1s, an X-Fi card should do well. After all, if you have a DAC1, there's not much point to going all-out on a surround card. But in case you wanted to know, the current consensus about the sound card with the best combination of sound quality and surround support is the AuzenTech X-Fi Prelude.

 

[Csi]

Thank you Infinite! You are most helpful.

Now if I can only figure out a way to capture you and put you into lamp....



Also a couple minor questions:

1. if the setup goes: computer -> optical out -> Dac1 -> RCA out ->receiver -> speakers

In this scenario I would want the Dac1 to be the dac, not merely a transport. Most receivers have their own dacs right? I do believe many people just optical out directly into a receiver. Anyway if I only want the receiver for its 7.1-5.1 support or encoding, do receivers have a setting to disable their internal dac? It would just seem silly to insert dac1 in the middle if a receiver will use its internal dac no matter what.

2. How do sound cards as dacs fair against receivers? If I would compare the 200 spent on that Auzentech x-fi vs. say a 200 dollar receiver like suggested panasonic xr-55 would they be similar? Would it be a situation like you would find in amps where dedicated amps typically beat out portables? So receivers beat out soundcards?

If so why? is it that the actual chips hardware is better? or ppl just like the 7.1-5.1 coding better?

3. Also if an amp were put into play, I would assume that would be inbetween dac1 and the receiver correct? If so would it be only worthwhile if the receiver internal dac can be overridden? I'm just scared that the receiver will ultimately color or dictate the sound.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Csi /img/forum/go_quote.gif 1. if the setup goes: computer -> optical out -> Dac1 -> RCA out ->receiver -> speakers In this scenario I would want the Dac1 to be the dac, not merely a transport. Most receivers have their own dacs right? I do believe many people just optical out directly into a receiver. Anyway if I only want the receiver for its 7.1-5.1 support or encoding, do receivers have a setting to disable their internal dac? It would just seem silly to insert dac1 in the middle if a receiver will use its internal dac no matter what.

No, unfortunately with a receiver it's either all-analog or all-digital; you can't tell it which format to use for individual channels. The problem is that the sound card must be in multi-channel mode to output surround content, but both analog and digital outputs will be passing multi-channel information, which isn't accessible by the DAC1. In other words, you can't use the DAC1 just for the front channels of surround content.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Csi 2. How do sound cards as dacs fair against receivers? If I would compare the 200 spent on that Auzentech x-fi vs. say a 200 dollar receiver like suggested panasonic xr-55 would they be similar? Would it be a situation like you would find in amps where dedicated amps typically beat out portables? So receivers beat out soundcards? If so why? is it that the actual chips hardware is better? or ppl just like the 7.1-5.1 coding better?

Sound cards can best receivers and vice-versa, but it's more likely that the sound card will win out against a budget receiver. The Panasonic XR series is a special case, because strangely enough, they don't have DACs. They do a PWM process that converts the signal into analog just before the speaker outputs. This means that they sound pretty good when their digital inputs are used, but relatively awful with analog inputs, for example if you plugged in the DAC1. Not to mention that their amplification sections are weak, which also affects sound quality.

A receiver is the opposite of "dedicated," since it has a lot of unrelated tasks built into the same box (DAC, preamp, power amp, tuner, video conversion, upscaling, etc.), so some of the individual features will suffer. But, some higher-end receivers can outperform standalone equipment.

A sound card is meant for sound, and though there are issues with possible EMI contamination from the computer's motherboard and power supply, they can and do often use higher-quality parts, which results in higher sound quality. For example, the aforementioned AuzenTech X-Fi Prelude uses AKM's top-of-the-line DAC, the AK4396, and one of National Semiconductor's top op-amps, the LM4562. This puts it in the same league as professional cards and audio interfaces like the E-MU 0404 USB. The difference is that the Prelude has multi-channel output.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Csi 3. Also if an amp were put into play, I would assume that would be inbetween dac1 and the receiver correct? If so would it be only worthwhile if the receiver internal dac can be overridden? I'm just scared that the receiver will ultimately color or dictate the sound.

It depends which type of amplifier you're talking about, headphone or power amplifier. Once that's clear, I can answer your question.

 

[Csi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by infinitesymphony /img/forum/go_quote.gif No, unfortunately with a receiver it's either all-analog or all-digital; you can't tell it which format to use for individual channels. The problem is that the sound card must be in multi-channel mode to output surround content, but both analog and digital outputs will be passing multi-channel information, which isn't accessible by the DAC1. In other words, you can't use the DAC1 just for the front channels of surround content.

For the last sentence I definitely understand that but i am talking about the dac1 being placed before the receiver. Correct me if i'm wrong but this is how I imagine the signal being sent. Note I little technical knowledge on audio and am not an engineer so perhaps my jargon or "concepts" might be a little mixed up.

So I open my music application (foobar) and it sends out the music information in a signal. From the time it is created to when it is received into the Dac1, the signal should have not changed right? That is what people are talking about when they are talking about a bit perfect signal? The signal should not be in any form [it isn't 2.1 or 5.1 or eqed or anything just maxed volume] right? The Dac1 then does its magic, I have really no clue what it does hahaha, and pumps out the signal to the receiver. It is within the receiver the signal finally is manipulated to the surround sound format.

I didn't want to use the dac1 just for the front speakers or anything like that.


Quote:

Originally Posted by infinitesymphony /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sound cards can best receivers and vice-versa, but it's more likely that the sound card will win out against a budget receiver. The Panasonic XR series is a special case, because strangely enough, they don't have DACs. They do a PWM process that converts the signal into analog just before the speaker outputs. This means that they sound pretty good when their digital inputs are used, but relatively awful with analog inputs, for example if you plugged in the DAC1. Not to mention that their amplification sections are weak, which also affects sound quality. A receiver is the opposite of "dedicated," since it has a lot of unrelated tasks built into the same box (DAC, preamp, power amp, tuner, video conversion, upscaling, etc.), so some of the individual features will suffer. But, some higher-end receivers can outperform standalone equipment.

What does PWM stand for? So it looks like Dac1 will be useless in a speaker setup. Would extending my budget another 100-200 bucks get me to the next plateau to solve the analog problems of dac1 to a receiver? Any idea on what mid range and high range price points are?

I think a better question is, what can the Dac1 do over the receiver? More specifically, if they both were to receive digital/optical inputs, from a purely dac perspective there is no loss in just using a receiver over the dac1 right? Especially if I start to reach for a nicer receiver product then a low mid product would beat out the dac1?

Also just to give me perspective on the value of a receiver in a setup. Can you give me some arbitrary values to its worth? Say for example with a headphone set up, cans are the #1 aspect that should get the most investment. Then people say source, then amp, interconnects, power, etc.
So if i were to give random values:

cans 75
source: 40
amp: 25
interconnect 15

Anyway how does receiver fit in for speaker setup? I'd imagine speakers obviously and sub would be clear favorites but in my case would the source be the computer or receiver?






Quote:

Originally Posted by infinitesymphony /img/forum/go_quote.gif A sound card is meant for sound, and though there are issues with possible EMI contamination from the computer's motherboard and power supply, they can and do often use higher-quality parts, which results in higher sound quality. For example, the aforementioned AuzenTech X-Fi Prelude uses AKM's top-of-the-line DAC, the AK4396, and one of National Semiconductor's top op-amps, the LM4562. This puts it in the same league as professional cards and audio interfaces like the E-MU 0404 USB. The difference is that the Prelude has multi-channel output. It depends which type of amplifier you're talking about, headphone or power amplifier. Once that's clear, I can answer your question.

Too bad they can't take their pci card and make have it in some external setup.

Power amplifiers would be good, and headphone amps would be bad? Unless it was a really good one which probably would have a bigger power intake? Would it just depend on the individual headphone amp?

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Csi /img/forum/go_quote.gif So I open my music application (foobar) and it sends out the music information in a signal. From the time it is created to when it is received into the Dac1, the signal should have not changed right? That is what people are talking about when they are talking about a bit perfect signal? The signal should not be in any form [it isn't 2.1 or 5.1 or eqed or anything just maxed volume] right? The Dac1 then does its magic, I have really no clue what it does hahaha, and pumps out the signal to the receiver. It is within the receiver the signal finally is manipulated to the surround sound format.

You're correct until the part about the receiver. It's possible for a receiver to take two-channel input and upmix it to multiple channels, but this is not at all the same thing as actual surround sound. You can't have surround sound and use the DAC1 at the exact same time. You can switch between them whenever you want, but the DAC1 will be useless to you when you want to hear surround content. That's what I've been trying to say.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Csi What does PWM stand for? So it looks like Dac1 will be useless in a speaker setup. Would extending my budget another 100-200 bucks get me to the next plateau to solve the analog problems of dac1 to a receiver? Any idea on what mid range and high range price points are?

PWM = pulse width modulation, but I'm a little unclear as to how exactly the process is used in the Panasonic receivers--just that it is used. But that's nothing you'll have to worry about with any other make or model of receiver. Your DAC1 won't be useless by any means, but an inferior receiver's preamp/amplifier sections do have the ability to decrease performance. How much you want to spend on a receiver is up to you. What kinds of speakers will you be driving?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Csi I think a better question is, what can the Dac1 do over the receiver? More specifically, if they both were to receive digital/optical inputs, from a purely dac perspective there is no loss in just using a receiver over the dac1 right? Especially if I start to reach for a nicer receiver product then a low mid product would beat out the dac1?

Of the three devices we're talking about that have DACs (sound card, DAC1, receiver), the DAC1 is the best. It's a DAC--that's what it's designed to do. I'll bet that the DAC1 would outperform the DAC section of pretty much any receiver. It should be leagues ahead of anything but other high-end DACs and CD players.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Csi Also just to give me perspective on the value of a receiver in a setup. Can you give me some arbitrary values to its worth? Say for example with a headphone set up, cans are the #1 aspect that should get the most investment. Then people say source, then amp, interconnects, power, etc. So if i were to give random values: cans 75 source: 40 amp: 25 interconnect 15 Anyway how does receiver fit in for speaker setup? I'd imagine speakers obviously and sub would be clear favorites but in my case would the source be the computer or receiver?

Your numbers look good enough, and I'd agree with them. If you had a sound card, a DAC1, and a receiver, any one of them could function as the source. Since this is sort of a complicated setup, let's break the word "source" down into its two components, "transport" and "DAC." If you use the digital output of your sound card, the card is acting as your transport, and the receiving device will act as your DAC. This applies to both the DAC1 and the HT receiver. If you use the sound card by itself, it's both the transport and the DAC. So, you could have a variety of different setups just with those three pieces of gear.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Csi Too bad they can't take their pci card and make have it in some external setup.

I'm afraid that the limitation is built into the USB standard. There just isn't enough bandwidth to do external multi-channel audio.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Csi Power amplifiers would be good, and headphone amps would be bad? Unless it was a really good one which probably would have a bigger power intake? Would it just depend on the individual headphone amp?

No, there's no good or bad, I was just curious which you meant. Sort of like "source" can be broken into "transport" and "DAC," there are different meanings for the word "amplifier." For example, a home theater receiver is really a multi-channel "integrated" amplifier, meaning it includes both a preamplifier (a.k.a. source selector and a volume knob) and a power amplifier (the part that amplifies the signal and drives your speakers).

Don't worry if the information isn't clear to you yet, because eventually it will be.

Here's what you should be deciding... Do you want to focus on headphones, speakers, or both, what's your budget for each item, and how important is surround sound?

 

[Csi]

I think i will end up doing nothing. I'll just save =/

Basically getting the Auzentech probably solves my problems in getting a 5.1 surround solution with improved sound over my audigy 2 zs. This solution is only 200+ bucks but I realize the limitations of my current speaker set up.

So if I do indeed try to upgrade speakers [which would probably be like 500-1000 for a pair] and a sub then i'd have to get a receiver. In this likely scenario i'll have wasted money on buying the sound card. Thanks for your help, you have cleared up a lot.

 

[infinitesymphony]

No problem... Integrating everything into one system without wasting money can be very difficult. In my mind, I think of my computer rig and my home theater rig as entirely separate entities, and this saves me a lot of confusion.