So, I'm about to buy my receiver + speakers, and will only buying a TV later.

What are my best options to use my speakers/receiver with my PC right now? How do I actually connect them, if these are my receiver inputs and outputs?

I am pretty much lost as to what cable to use from which PC port to which receiver port.

Thanks

Dunno. It depends on your motherboard, video card, monitor, and receiver.

Optical S/PDIF is probably the easiest, or coax S/PDIF if you only have that. If your video card supports sound over HDMI that is fine too (either use a spare port, or go PC->receiver->monitor, or use an audio splitter). These are all digital and over a single cable.

As a last resort, you can use the per-channel analog coax inputs with a bunch of splitters, or 3.5 mm line out/line in for stereo only. This will be lower quality and involve a mess of cables, but if that's all you've got then that's all you've got. I've been there too.

Thanks for the reply.



So if I do this:
GTX970 - HDMI Cable - Aux input port on AV receiver
and
Monitor output on AV receiver - HDMI Cable - Monitor
and
Front left and right outputs on AV receiver - speaker wire - my speakers...

That should work?

Thanks

Yes with the caveat that this may add some latency to the video. If your receiver has any sort of game mode make sure to switch it on. You'll also need to set your default sound device to your video card.

So I could use a HDMI splitter, I suppose, to have one HDMI cable running directly to my monitor, and the other through my receiver, and this should undo any possible video latency, right?

Some might add latency, most won't. Just use the game mode on your receiver. They'll pretty much all have one.

Receivers generally do not have game mode unless they do a lot of video processing. The entire Sony line doesn't, for instance. I don't see any appreciable difference in latency unless you enable upscaling on the receiver.

In terms of audio: there's a few caveats to keep in mind. Some only apply to surround sound, but most apply to anything.

A. Optical can only do regular Dolby Digital and DTS. Not any of the newer formats. So if you are playing movies from your PC, this may be an issue. You will need to use HDMI for those. This also applies to the ARC if you ever use that.
B. Unless the PC is dedicated to the receiver, keep in mind HDMI may start pissing you off with windows moving everywhere every time you turn it on. It's like plugging a monitor in every time.
C. HDCP is a pain in the ass. Some programs will ***** about being attached to a repeater (the receiver), even though it's all HDCP qualified.
D. Digital audio can sometimes be annoying on Windows. Some systems (it varies) will disconnect when they don't have a signal for a while. This means they have to reactivate every time there's a sound. Really annoying sometimes.

Thanks for the help, I feel smarter having read this thread.

I went to a HiFi astore to test some speakers, and I suggested the solution posted by you guys to use a receiver and chromecast to stream my audio and video from my PC to my TV and speakers.

They are saying now, that a receiver isn't the right audiophile solution. They much prefer sound quality on a regular amp. That's why they're suggesting using something like DivXPlayer Pro to stream audio and video to my TV.

This doesn't seem like the solution to me, because I would use my setup to also actually mirror my desktop to TV and speakers, for the use of say, in browser sports streams and youtube.

Any thoughts on their claim that using a receiver causes downgrade of audio and video?

Thanks for the help, I want to get this exactly right.

TL;DR: their advice is word salad.

For starters, a receiver IS an amp. It’s called a receiver because it integrates a DAC, preamp, and tuner, which today aren’t sophisticated enough devices to not integrate. If you want a better amp it’s as easy as buying a better receiver.

Audiophiles like to spend thousands or tens of thousands on specialty **** like tube amps. They think it sounds better, but there is no empirical evidence for it. That doesn’t mean those specialty devices are useless, but they’re only useful under special circumstances. I own a dedicated DAC and a dedicated amp, but that isn’t because of sound quality. It’s because Linux works better with the DAC than my on-board sound, and the DAC isn’t powerful enough to drive my headphones by itself. This is a very special situation, as are all situations where you’d want to break components out of a receiver. Unless you are certain you need it, you don’t.

As far as I know there is no technical reason why a DivX app would provide better sound than any other streaming app or device. The output from such a device should be digital. That means the quality is the same as anything else hooked up to the same DAC (receiver).

I’d guess these are either know nothing blueshirts or they’re trying to up sell something you don’t need.

If you eventually decide you want to get into tube amp bull****, well, that’s fine. But then you should start with a good receiver anyway, because it means you have so much money to spend on sound equipment that buying a temporary receiver is basically nothing to you.

The whole vinyl/tube amp thing is about which distortions do you prefer.

What Reid said is true for tube amps. People generally buy tube amps because they want the tainted sound of a tube amp, and don't trust a digital EQ to do the same job for free. It's a bunch of wank and is entirely personal preference. It is also 150% not accurate audio reproduction. People buy it because they like the tainted sound, not because it's correct. Tubes also have a bunch of other problems (like, you know, burning out).

A serious digital amp and DAC combo can on paper do a better job of audio reproduction than most receivers. Does it matter? Typically, no. Especially if you are not driving them to ridiculous volume levels. Distortion only becomes apparent as you drive the receiver towards its limits. That's why ridiculous-scale home theaters use receivers paired with a separate amp, because they just straight need more power. It's not that receivers these days can't produce good audio, they absolutely can. But they won't drive 12 speakers at 100W cleanly.

All that said, 2 speaker stereo on a receiver like that mid-range Denon is ABSOLUTELY within its wheelhouse of capabilities and you would gain nothing by getting a different amp.

As for the rest of the BS they dropped on you, bunch of wank, just like Jon`C said. The Chromecast Audio over optical cable (and the video one, via HDMI) is compatible with bit perfect reproduction of audio. That means it's giving the receiver exactly what you're playing, with no analog conversion, no compression, no adaptation at all. You can't get more perfect than that.

The receiver is not going to do jack **** to the video quality, unless you turn scaling on (which is a simple on/off in settings). It will be perfect. Even $25,000 home theater insane setups still use receivers for video, and for audio DACs. Because they're still fantastic for that purpose.


Also, Divx software players are piles of ****, and I honestly would have walked out the store if they suggested that crap to me. What a joke. That's like suggesting Internet Explorer to someone as a good browser.

So I am also thinking about a sound system upgrade for the PC. Right now the speakers are from an old table top Phillips stereo system. Actually, the sound is fine for my purpose but due to all of the old consoles and equipment, or at least I assume it's due to this, and all of the A/V switching I am doing there is some unwanted noise. I may look at cable management in the short term but I'm also thinking that an AV receiver with at least four HDMI ports, component inputs (at least one), composite (or even s-video) that can upscale to 1080P HDMI from all inputs would be cool and very cool under $300. I am not worried about better than 5.1 audio for this room at the moment.

I did some experimenting last night and this morning with some interesting results. The primary situation where I experience this noise is in playing Starcraft (Remastered) Brood War and specifically mostly in game. I substituted a different 3.5mm cable to the stereo. No change. I tried the front panel headphone out to the stereo. No change. I tried a USB audio adapter with no change. I even tried sound outputted to a television I'm using as a secondary monitor through HDMI with no change. I found that last one curious. This morning I went into the game and muted all game sounds and the buzzing persists and the buzzing is definitely through the speakers as lowering the following on the stereo controls the volume of the buzzing. I then plugged a pair of earbuds into the front panel and the buzzing persisted but only on the audio connection to the stereo. The sound output to the earbuds was clean.

Not wanting to be restricted to playing the game with headphones on I experimented with the volume level on the stereo and found that (out of a max of 40) 5-7 virtually eliminated the buzzing while still acceptable volume wise. So problem solved, essentially, but I'm still curious what the issue is. I've seen that a game can use a frequency outside of the range of the speakers but that doesn't seem to explain this to me. The buzzing gets transmitted even through HDMI to TV speakers. I was thinking perhaps some issue between the motherboard and the game but the HDMI is coming off the video card but that is plugged in to the motherboard so maybe. Weird. I thought about selecting the option to use the original unit voiceovers rather than the remastered version but I'm just going to consider this one good enough for now and I doubt that would do anything anyway.

Coil whine probably

That's an interesting suggestion but I haven't found a reference to it being transmitted through audio connections.

So I bought speakers and a receiver. They didn't have the receiver I purchased in stock, so they gave me an interim one. Now they're taking back the interim one, because someone else has bought it.

So now I'm back to my desktop speakers for a few weeks, until my purchase comes in.

I'm slightly offended listening to music now. I'm a snob now.