Sound on a htpc

[davidxs]

Hello, i have been building a htpc for 2 years ithought optic fiber for sound was the best but today ifind out hdmi is way better i have a geforce 9600 gt video card and a gigabyte ep45-ud3p motherboard what do i need to do or buy to get the best sound through hdmi thanks heaps dave

 

[ssddx]

what moron told you that?

hdmi and spdif optical are pretty much around the same quality level.

 

[jcoultas98]

If your HTPC includes a Blu-Ray drive, and you own a receiver that either supports Dolby TrueHD, DTS Master Audio, OR supports Linear PCM via HDMI, you would want to consider upgrading to a video card that supports HDMI. Toslinik optical cables and Coaxial audio cables are not able to transimt full multichannel uncompressed PCM, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, or DTS Master signals. If you don't have a receiver that has HDMI and supports one of the three, save your money, there won't be any difference in sound quality. Dolby TrueHD, and DTS Master are currently only available on Blu-Ray titles, so again, if you don't own a blu-ray player, you have no need for HDMI. Dolby Digital Plus is used in Windows Media Center, but due to extremely limited support from broadcasters, it is more than likely overkill.

Dolby Digital: 640Kbps
Dolby Digital Plus: 6.144 Mbit/s
Dolby TrueHD: 18 Mbit/s
DTS Master: 24 Mbit/s