huskiee

hey bear the onkyo has a mode called 'pure audio' which shuts off tone management (and the display on the receiver). Is this what you were referring to for analogue pass through? For all posters - thanks for the comments. I had a demonstration of the B&W center speaker today, and also listened to a small sub (B&W 608). The center speaker sounded great for the movie. Sub definitely added some bass for both theater and stereo modes. I'll probably take these two items over the next couple of months, with a view of adding some 603s or 604s in future to complete the set-up as suggested. Adjusting the amp speaker settings have improved my bass issue already. I either had never set it up properly, or moving speakers around so much meant it had to be adjusted. On the output issue - to improve audio out from PC to receiver a DAC probably wouldn't be useful as it would only be dual channel? Would an upgraded soundcard and v link improve quality of both multi and dual channel sound? (wouldnt look at upgrading the receiver just yet). If so can you suggest any cost-effective ones? Thanks for your comments.

Hi all I have an media PC which I use for all movies and music. I set up my system a couple of years ago, not knowing much about how to optimize PC audio. I wanted a surround system so i got an Onkyo txsr 606 which i connect to via SPDIF from integrated sound card on motherboard (asus). The cheaper 5.1 speakers didnt sound great, so I ended up just buying a pair of B&W 685s. I'm now looking at adding to my system, so I'm looking at a B&W center speaker (HTM 61) which is on sale to start making use of multi-channels. The main question I had for the forum, is what would be the best way to improve the quality both of stereo music and multi-channel with my existing set-up. I find the system sounds a little harsh right now for music, and also lacks bass. For music I use the Direct Audio setting on the receiver. I've done some reading on this forum over the last couple of days and did some basic improvements including: Switch from i-tunes / foobar to J river (noticeable improvement in quality from itunes, better interface than foobar) Upgraded from 360kbps to FLAC source where possible (lot more clarity, but still has a 'clinical' sound) Played with the speaker positioning (ongoing ) Apart from the center speaker I'd be interested in improving the overall sound quality, in particular for music. Questions I had were: - I know my amp is intended for surround. Would an external DAC improve the quality of stereo music with this amp? Does it also improve multi-channel surround? - Would a dedicated stereo amp give me better quality music than a DAC to the Onkyo? - Would bi-wiring the bookshelf speakers improve the bass? - Can the center speak be used for music at all? Any comments or other suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks H