On-Board Sound Question

[vintank]

My question is this:

I have a Home Theatre system that is Dolby Digital has all the decoders pretty good system. Now I am doing research on a new mother board and I have narrowed it done to 2 the ASUS - A7N8X E-DELUXE and the DFI LANPARTY NFII ULTRA B. The ASUS board has soundstorm with built in 5.1 decoder, and the DFI has 6 channel audio using the Realtek ALC650. The question is with plugging the computer into the stereo for sound do I need a motherboard with the decoder in it, or will the stereo decode the sound from a motherboard that has 6 channel sound with Digital I/O's?
I have not been able to find the an answer to this question anywhere on the internet and every computer company I have questioned none of them can answer the question. Any help that anyone can give me on this would be greatly appreciated.

Vintank

 

[Mr_Nuke]

5.1 channel is a pure Dolby Digital system. 6 channel is just a trick to persuade customers in buying their board, believing the buy a Dolby Digital system. Bothe the 5.1 and 6 channel can be set to operate only stereo, but if you really want to feel it better, buy a separate sound card, a [url=6.1 or <A HREF="http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?prodid=4915" target="_new">7.1</A> <font color=red>THX Certified only</font color=red>.Also make sure they support DTS-ES and Dolby Digital Extended.
Or you can just stick to stereo, both the boards will take it.

P.S. 7.1 is a nothing. It is just an extenct of 5.1, but with no sensitive improovement. 6.1 allthrough it sounds less promising then 7.1 it has a substantial difference.

 

[vintank]

So the with wanting to save a little money then the ASUS board is the best choice because it has Dolby Digital 5.1 decoding on the board? The other option I was looking at was getting the Soundblaster Audigy ZS Plantinum but it is $270 Canadian so was looking at saving some money.

 

[Crashman]

Don't listend to Mr. Nukedbrain, the nForce APU such as found on the Deluxe is a perfect audio processor. To use it directly, you connect the S/P-DIF output to your stereo's Digital Coaxial connector.

Of course if your Stereo is really JUST stereo (ie, no surround sound), you'd just hook the analog output to it by a 1/8" stero minijack to Left/Right RCA cable.

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[vintank]

Thanks. Yeah my stereo is Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS. So I guess my choice will be the ASUS A7N8X E Deluxe, which is fine by me that board is cheaper. Any particular ram that I should on this motherboard? I am going with the Barton 2500+, and am going to go with an ATI 9600XT as my video card, everything else I have already. Well actually going with a Thermaltake Xaser III V1000 with two red cold cathode lights and clear round cables for HDD and floppies and cdrom's. Let me know about the ram, I know nothing about different ram. I have read some posts here about issues with ram on ASUS motherboards so why not ask.
Thanks for the help.
Vintank

 

[Crashman]

I'd get some decent PC3200 and try overclocking the CPU. Pick your favorite manufacturer.

Then just hook the digital audio output of the motherboard to the digital input on the receiver, and have fun!

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[trifler]

My own personal preference is the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 with just the card for $70.

 

[Crashman]

A useless expense when your board already has an equally powerfull audio processor.

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[endyen]

But the audigy does have the advantage of using more cpu. Well maybe thats a dissadvantage.