Hooking-up a PC to a Home Stereo

[ptw]

Hi everyone!

I've converted a lot of my music collection over to MP3 stored on a server. Now I want to hook up a computer to an old stereo system to play these over my wireless LAN (and hope my CDs never have to see the light of day again!) The stereo is a Panasonic Mini-System...a standard 2-speaker job with RCA inputs.

Any recommendations on a sound card for this? The computer is a Celeron (400 MHZ right now, but will upgrade to 1.7 Ghz or an Athlon XP 1700+ later if necessary) with 256 MB SDRAM, running Windows XP. In the future, the stereo may be upgraded to include a subwoofer, but will never have rear-satellite speakers. Will almost any sound card do? Should I be looking at a mid-range card, or will I have to shell out for a higher-end card?

Thanks a bunch!

 

[Crashman]

Any sound card will work, you just need a 1/8" stereo minijack to 2 RCA cable adapter (I recommend the one on a 3-foot cable, as the adapter block gets in the way on the back of a PC). Of course, you'll want to use a card that provides adequate sound quality.

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