# Best way to connect computer



## kevinturcotte (Dec 19, 2006)

My sound card has optical and 7.1 analog output (Mini to stereo). Which way is going to give me the best audio when connecting to my A/V receiver (It has both connections)?


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

Best is subjective, but going optical means one cable and it should be about as good a sound as you can get from your PC.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Optical in most cases as it will bypass a chunk of the processing on your audio card and instead use the receivers digital to analog conversion. The difference may be very minimal if not non-existent though depending on the equipment involved.


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## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

However...

Most consumer optical and coax digital devices are limited to Dolby Digital 5.1, and don't support 7.1 or any of the new HD and lossless codecs. Largely only HDMI can offer those, ALONG with analog outputs, assuming your equipment has 7.1 analog inputs to deal with them.

Most people would agree that 7.1 analog output lossless is far better than optical DD5.1. So it isn't always as simple as you'd like...


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## kevinturcotte (Dec 19, 2006)

If it helps any, it's a Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Card.


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## Grentz (Jan 10, 2007)

Probably fine either way with that card. Just depends on what your source material is.

As BattleZone pointed out, for anything over 5.1 you are going to want to do analog. But if you do only 5.1 or maybe even only stereo, you might want to explore optical.


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

I use my PC solely for playing music. The digital out (coax in my case) works great.

But if you're doing BluRay, go with 7.1 lossless analog.


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