Stereo & 5.1 together..

seanyc5

seanyc5

seanyc5

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Hi,

I think its time i got 5.1 system. How do people go about having say a usb uDac2 for stereo (mostly through the built in headphone amp) connected to stereo amp etc..
Then a hdmi out to AV box for surround.

Is it do-able without having to go into sound settings and swap between them all the time??

I cant see it being ideal, but constantly read that 5.1 amps are not much good for stereo sound.

I already have 4 pretty decent bookshelf speakers 2 diff pairs that i would use for the time being when i get a AV receiver.

Thanks,
Sean
 
You would need an amp with pre-inputs I imagine. The more experienced guys would tell you more about this than I could though. :)
 
lucid said:
This is how you do it... LINK
Click to expand...

That seems simple enough. Although as it says on there, that method would surely use the AVs DAC wouldnt it? Defeating the object of using a seperate hi-fi amp?

I maye have this completley wrong thats just how I see it.

Thanks,
Sean
 
seanyc5 said:
I maye have this completley wrong thats just how I see it.
Click to expand...
You are indeed confused.

If you intend to use the NuForce uDAC2 to take sound from your PC, then have a read of their web site or the user manual. It shows you the outputs from the DAC are headphone jack and stereo phono. It's the latter, the stereo phonos that you connect to the Hi-Fi amp.

There is also a coax output on the NuForce uDAC2. Here the DAC is simply converting digital audio via USB in to digital audio via Coax. That's a standards conversion rather than the full digital to analogue conversion which is the main purpose of a DAC.

Presuming the ripped PC files aren't compressed to hell, then the DAC gives better performance than any inbuilt conversion in the laptop/PC. Connecting the analogue outs to a Hi-Fi amp preserves that signal quality.

The only time you are going to use the AV amp's in-built DAC is with AV sources (e.g. games consoles, BD/DVD player, Freeview/Sky/Freesat tuner etc) rather than with Hi-Fi sources. Depending on the AV source these could be connected via HDMI, coax or optical toslink.
 
You would connect all your stereo analogue sources directly to the stereo amp, bypassing the AV amp altogether.

The only nuisance is if your stereo integrated doesn't have an AV bypass mode to bypass the volume control. It won't stop the system working, but you'll need to fiddle with both volume controls at first to find a set point on the stereo amp for movies.

I had this sort of setup for a couple of years before ditching the AV amp, it worked well, but I didn't need (or miss) the surround sound. I'm sure I'll go back at some stage.
 
Thanks for the responses, i dont think i was clear.

The udac2 is currently connected to hi-fi amp via RCA and is fed FLACs via foobar2k. Amp is an old Technics su-x101 no remote set at -28db and then i control volume via udac2.

Now for the 5.1 system i would have plugged in an xbox360 (never use it), and my PC playing either mkv's or blu ray's out via HDMI of the GFX card.

Is it still possible? Wouldnt i need to keep switching between udac and GFX audio out?

Sorry if im still wrong lol
Thanks,
Sean
 
I don't know how you select between your GFX and USB outputs. Or whether the USB can handle all. If so then connecting the coax out from the DAC to the AV amp would simplify things. Stereo to the amp, digital to the AV receiver. That way the AV receiver could accept stereo LPCM or a digital signal and then decode it.
 
lucid said:
I don't know how you select between your GFX and USB outputs. Or whether the USB can handle all. If so then connecting the coax out from the DAC to the AV amp would simplify things. Stereo to the amp, digital to the AV receiver. That way the AV receiver could accept stereo LPCM or a digital signal and then decode it.
Click to expand...

Exactly, i doubt i could use the the udac2 as a 'passthrough' and go digital coax out to AV pretty sure it would only output in stereo.
Also i doubt the coax and RCA outputs would work together, i think id have to go coax to AV then pre-out to Hi-Fi amp.

You can just go into windows sund settings and choose your output but thats what i want to avoid having to keep switching between usb/gfx everytime i want to listen music/film.

Thanks,
Sean
 
After some intense googling i found this lol....


easy to do. by default all sound will go through the ODAC (udac2 in my case) unless you bypass it. Simply select HDMI in sound output settings in XBMC system menu and you are done..






I cant see how i didnt think of that lol i cant test it by just outputing HDMI to tv speakers in xbmc and all otheraudio via usb dac..




Yes it works just fine xbmx outputs via hdmi to tv speakers - foobar2k outputs via usb to DAC/Hifi amp. ! Simples.

Thanks again,
Sean
 
Last edited:
Glad you got it sorted! Seems like a nice easy fix. One to remember for HTPC owners, as you're not then limited by the AV amp's preamp.
 
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