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February 7, 2014 - 3:51am
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Need help with new rig....confused on the pc audio...
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I think your best bet is to look into an outboard USB Dac and then have that feed into your receiver. I struggle for years with SPDIF and other computer based solutions and found when i switched to an outboard DAC connected via USB to a computer it made all the difference. Also you mentioned running digital connections to your receiver. You can always do this, but will comment that receivers generally don't have the best sounding 2 channel DACs so you are probably much better off with an outboard DAc. There are many great options out there today and many are quite reasonable.
In terms of software, I swear by Jrivers. To me it offers bit perfect playback with an outboard dac as well as offers a number of extras that would make me want to own the software without a hi-fi rig. It has a great media streaming system built in that can share all your audio and video files across your house and allows for real time conversion of audio and video files (basically if you have a movie in a format your playstation cant read, it will convert the file in real time so you can play it back).
I've also used Foobar, but to be honest i always had trouble with the interface.
In terms of gaming, thats a bit out of my league, but you could always look into an Audio only HDMI connection to your receiver. (wouldnt recomend it for streo listening, but I can't think of an easier way to send multi channel content from a PC to a recevier without a purpose build suond card).
Hope that helps