[warxsnake]

Hi

I currently have a massive Fractal Design R3 XL case, that I might want to get rid of in exchange for a mini-itx case and setup, for easier maintenance and cleaning.

Obviously, Mini-ITX motherboards don't have PCI slots so my current sound card would have to go. 

Currently my audio setup is an HT Omega Claro Halo that mainly does Dolby Headphone -> Astro DH Mixamp -> Sennheiser IE80, which I like a whole lot. 

Are there any Mini-ITX boards that do dolby digial or dolby headphone?

Anyway, if not, are typical onboard audio solutions "good enough" to compare to my current decent setup? I mainly play games, music, and 3D art, no audio production.

What would be the best Mini-ITX board to pick for best audio?

Or are there external sound cards that do Dolby Headphone/DDL?

Sorry I'm not very technical when it comes to sound and audio components

Thanks!

 

[brunk]

Quote:

Hi

I currently have a massive Fractal Design R3 XL case, that I might want to get rid of in exchange for a mini-itx case and setup, for easier maintenance and cleaning.

Obviously, Mini-ITX motherboards don't have PCI slots so my current sound card would have to go. 

Currently my audio setup is an HT Omega Claro Halo that mainly does Dolby Headphone -> Astro DH Mixamp -> Sennheiser IE80, which I like a whole lot. 

Are there any Mini-ITX boards that do dolby digial or dolby headphone?

Anyway, if not, are typical onboard audio solutions "good enough" to compare to my current decent setup? I mainly play games, music, and 3D art, no audio production.

What would be the best Mini-ITX board to pick for best audio?

Or are there external sound cards that do Dolby Headphone/DDL?

Sorry I'm not very technical when it comes to sound and audio components

Thanks!

Can't you get a riser card that will allow it to fit in the case?

 

[Uberbob102000]

Can't you get a riser card that will allow it to fit in the case?

First, Mini ITX boards pretty much have a PCI-e x16, if the OPs card is traditional PCI it won't work at all. If it's PCI-e then it depends on if he uses a GPU or not.

Doesn't the Mixamp do Dolby Headphone itself from a digital input? As long as you wired up digital audio to it, it'll do that itself I thought. If you're just going to use the Mixamp all the time you could even pass a digital signal from on board audio via optical to the mixamp and it'll decode and DH that. That's at least what I gathered from MLE about how it works but I could be drastically mistake. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[warxsnake]

Quote:

First, Mini ITX boards pretty much have a PCI-e x16, if the OPs card is traditional PCI it won't work at all. If it's PCI-e then it depends on if he uses a GPU or not.

Doesn't the Mixamp do Dolby Headphone itself from a digital input? As long as you wired up digital audio to it, it'll do that itself I thought. If you're just going to use the Mixamp all the time you could even pass a digital signal from on board audio via optical to the mixamp and it'll decode and DH that. That's at least what I gathered from MLE about how it works but I could be drastically mistake. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks for the reply.
 
I'm not technical at all, just a question, would an onboard optical to Mixamp sound much worse than Claro Halo to Mixamp?
Because onboard sound typically isnt that good? Or does the mixamp compensate for that?
I dont know. 
But if it ends up sounding about the same I guess thats ok?