Newbie help with connecting home stereo (2 channel) to computer

[the quadfather]

OK, I'm a new a guy, I might ask some silly questions..

Up until just recently I always ran my home stereo speakers, (2 channel) out through my PC. Of course they were powered by my home stereo amp.

The setup was such that the speaks. were wired to the amp, and the amp had a lt/rt out going into my soundcard on the computer. The soundcard was great because it was RCA inputs, and married up well to the RCA's coming from the amp.

 

Fast forward to today.. I have a new computer. It seems that people don't use soundcards much anymore? So they tell me to run the audio through the motherboard. The MB is a ASUS P9X79. It has on the back... "Line-in" center channel, side speaker, front channel, etc. There is no "Line-out" On the front of the tower there is a mini jack for headphones, and a mini "Mic" jack.

 

I have purchased an adaptor for the RCA outs coming from the amp, to adapt. into a single 3.5 mini jack to go to the MB.

I am completely stumped on where to plug this in. I have gone with the "Line-in" and all the other options on the motherboard. No sound cometh forth. I've gone with the front of the computer, the Headphone out jack, Mic jack, etc. No dice!

 

When I plug it into different places, a window will pop up from the MB and show where I've plugged the amp into... but still no audio. (When I touch the hot end of the output from the amp, it will make noise in the speaks, obviously they are working. But no signal is seen from disk drive, youtube videos, etc.

 

Is there anything obvious that I'm doing wrong here? Do you need more information? The pop up window for audio via the motherboard is the most involved thing I've ever seen. There are a million options. I don't care about all the 7.1, I just want the good old left and right channel playback.

 

Thanks in advance!

[ringenesherre]

You got the directions mixed up. If you want to playback sound from the computer you have to use an output of the mb (try everything on the back except line-in, center, rear) and an input of your amp (aux in, line in, cd in - anything but outputs and phono inputs).

 

Cheers,

Peter

[mayhem13]

Welcome to CA quad father. Most have found that motherboard audio is less than acceptable for enjoyable listening. It's pretty much the premise for the creation of this Forum where the endless possibilities of a computer to serve up high quality audio.

 

What's become a 'staple' for getting high quality audio out of a computer and in to the audio gear is the USB ports. There's now literally hundreds of devices to do this with price ranging from $50 to five figures. Let us know what your existing system is and your budget so we might suggest an Interface or DAC (digital audio converter) to suit your needs.

[the quadfather]

Welcome to CA quad father. Most have found that motherboard audio is less than acceptable for enjoyable listening. It's pretty much the premise for the creation of this Forum where the endless possibilities of a computer to serve up high quality audio.

 

What's become a 'staple' for getting high quality audio out of a computer and in to the audio gear is the USB ports. There's now literally hundreds of devices to do this with price ranging from $50 to five figures. Let us know what your existing system is and your budget so we might suggest an Interface or DAC (digital audio converter) to suit your needs.

 

Thank you for your reply guys, I knew there must be somebody out there who understood where I was coming from, lol. Call me an audio snob, but all the friends and computer geek friends could not understand why I was resisting the motherboard audio.

 

Just put this computer together, so not exactly sure what info. you need but here goes:

ASUS P9X 79 motherboard, 3.6 Ghz?? i-7 CPU, 16 gigs ram, 2+ terrabyte hard drive, plus OS is on a seperate "SSD" type hard drive?

Something that is latest/greatest and fast.

GeForce GTX 680 video card, 600 watt power supply. Win 7 Home Premium addition.

 

I see here the MB has 8-channel audio DTS, 3.0 high speed USB all over the place. Couple of DVD CDRW burners, etc.

 

My intentions are to be doing a lot of video editing, building videos with the GoPro camera. I will use a lot of music files within this sort of thing, as well as I burn a lot with FLAC, lossless audio, etc.

 

You asked about budget for DAC? Well, I don't want the entry level unit. I saw some online for 20 bucks. If there is a price point where a significant jump in quality comes into play, please tell me. If a $50.00 DAC is fair, but a $100.00 rocks, then please point me there.

 

Thank you!

[mayhem13]

You may not need one.

 

I was wondering about your amplifier also....what are you using?

[the quadfather]

SANSUI AU-9900

 

Scroll to bottom of page for specs.

[ringenesherre]

Look at the $250-1000 class. Improvements after that are IMHO marginal and very much a matter of taste. Audioquest Dragonfly would pop to my mind if you want a minimal but soundwise good solution. See also:

Computer Audiophile - AudioQuest DragonFly Review

 

If you want something big and as good as it gets (again IMHO), take a Benchmark DAC2:

DAC2 HGC - 2-Channel Reference Stereo Preamplifier with Heaphone Amp and DSD D/A Converter | Benchmark Media

 

Just my 2 cents,

Peter

[mayhem13]

As Peter mentions the Audioquest Dragonfly would be a good entry level choice. The HRT Music Streamer II is also a great budget DAC. Look on Audiogon.com for Pre owned units if you want to save a few $$$.