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Hi all! Q. Has anyone managed to bitstream their audio via HDMI from their graphics card? I'd like an external device to decode all sound from my PC (either an AV receiver or soundbar, both can decode all the common sound formats up to Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA). I received an email from nVidia today to state that my graphics card (nVidia GForce GTX 1060 6GB) only outputs sound in PCM. I've asked nVidia and AMD if any of their GPUs allow audio to be output in bitstream. I'd happily move to AMD if the RX 580 / Vega 56 did allow bitstream or look at a sound card that enabled the same. Thanks for your answers in advance!

Here's my dilemma: Our local community theater stages mostly plays and musicals. They have a small theater with what amounts to a 5.1 surround system (L,R,C,RR,LR,LFE) permanently installed. They use this primarily for sound effects and music cues in plays and sound reinforcement in musicals. They have a desktop PC to run their SFX cues and a Focusrite 18i20 USB interface to route the sound to their console which then routes the audio to their 6 active speakers through balanced +4 Db lines. All this works fine and sounds lovely. Now, they have decided to fill in some gaps in their schedule with "Family Movie Nights." They have contracted with Swank for the public performance rights of the "films" and Swank will provide the media in the form of a blu-ray DVD. I want to help them make the right choices in terms of playing that media from their current system. They have, as of yet, not purchased a blu-ray player and they have essentially three choices: 1.) A stand-alone DVD player 2.) Add a USB DVD player 3.) Add an internal player I have found no stand-alone DVD players with professional output levels and interfacing consumer gear into this console is somewhat problematic so this is not my first choice. An external USB DVD would be the best solution because it would mean zero downtime for their computer. An internal player is possible, but properly interfacing the drive with the motherboard is always a challenge. (FWIW--MoBo is MSI -7693) Regarding playback from a PC, what I am most unclear about is the middleware that will allow us to route the audio from the DVD to the 18i20 to get the audio to the console (SFAIK--there is no "surround decoder" in the 18i20. It will need discrete channels.). What software is best to use to play the show? We, of course, would also like the drive to be reliable (and rugged) so your thoughts on brand and model would be greatly appreciated. I am also wondering if there are any DRM compatibility issues that are distinct to audio that I should worry about or if that is all handled in the DVD device. So what say ye? Am I doomed or is there an easy answer?

If you're a fan of Steely Dan and surround sound listener at all, you probably have one or more of Elliot Scheiner's fantastic 5.1 remixes of either Gaucho, Two Against Nature or Everything Must Go, or Donald Fagen's first three solo albums, and know how mind-blowingly good they are. In 2004, Universal listed Steely Dan's first six albums (Can't Buy A Thrill through Aja) as multichannel SACDs "coming soon" on their website, but they ended their support for surround sound music in early 2005 and the whole project was scrapped. Recently a small group of us from the QuadraphonicQuad.com forums have had some contact with someone close to the band who wants to see this project re-started, and can put the case forward on our behalf to someone at UMG who's in a position to investigate making it happen. Obviously with any kind of endeavour like this there are a million hurdles to overcome but it's our understanding via our contact that a show of support from potential purchasers might help get the ball rolling. The petition is here if you'd like to show your interest. Scheiner said in interviews circa 2006 that the 5.1 mix for Pretzel Logic at the very least was completed, so if we can help get that released at the very least, I'd consider it a major win simply based on how good his 5.1 remix of Gaucho is. Anything beyond that would be a bonus - I know we've all heard the "missing multi-tracks" stories about Black Cowand Aja, but who knows what's transpired in that regard in the last 10 years.

Hello All, New to the forum, hope this is in the right place. I am trying to come up with the best Amp for my PC gaming setup. What I want to do it to cut out having to have a digital signal come out of my PC. I am currently using a Soundblaster Z. I have Toslink going to a Pioneer Elite 5.1 thats 10+ years old and then out to 2 M&K speakers for FL FR and then JBL Control 1 for center RL+RR. I am using a powered Sub from Aperion. What I would like to do is have an amp that can take the individual analog signals from my sound card and pass them out to my speakers. I will need some control over gain for each channel, but not much. My plane was to get a multi-room amp and just have it push sound out to all my speakers letting my soundcard perform all of the signal processing for positional audio and such. My total budget for the amp and extra cables is around 1000.00. I was thinking of getting either of these amps. Has anyone else tried this before? My thoughts are I upgrade my amp very rarely, but my PC gets a new sound card much sooner. Please any thoughts on other options or if this will even work would be GREAT! Also do they make some type of mixer I could use between my sound card and amp to control levels? THANKS AGAIN Amazon.com: Niles SI1230 Series 2 12-Channel Amplifier (FG01704): Electronics http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004S3PY9M/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3EYDDCAT8EC38&coliid=I6SR4Y395LLH5&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004S3PY9M/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3EYDDCAT8EC38&coliid=I6SR4Y395LLH5&psc=1

Firstly, apologies if this is in the wrong section. I have a great home cinema system which I use for watching movies and listening to 5.1 albums (Blu-ray and DVD). Seeing as this set up is located in the living room of my home I only really get to listen to my 5.1 albums now and then, I'm usually relegated to a bedroom upstairs where I have another BD player and some headphones (Sony wireless). The problem I have is that the BD player doesn't allow me to change the EQ settings, so everything sounds as though it has too much bass through the headphones (which aren't the problem, I checked). Basically, some of my DVDs/BDs contain high-res stereo which is why I'm using a BD player and not just a CD player. Can anyone help me find a BD player which has EQ control and left/right (the red and white) output sockets? It doesn't need to be 5.1 capable and I'm not interested in its picture output quality, only the audio.

Not sure if anyone has posted this already, but it looks like Acoustic Sounds just listed a bunch of their Blu-Ray Audio discs that they will be selling. A lot of stuff we've already seen before on SACD but you can count me in for Beck's Sea Change & Queen's Bohemiam Rhapsody in 5.1 Surround, that will be pretty sweet! Here is the link: Vinyl Records, SACDs, DVD Audio, Audiophile Equipment | Acoustic Sounds

Greetings all, An article on the AudioStream website which might be of interest to those of you who enjoy high resolution 5.1 channel surround sound music releases: World's First Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Downloads Coming Soon! | AudioStream Regards, Mister Wednesday

How do I get 5.1 dolby digital surround sound from imac? Hi everyone, I am very very new to this forum so if I do something inappropriate, I apologize for that. =) Here are my questions. I have got a mid 2007 iMac and a Creative inspire p7800 7.1 speaker. What I want to do is to hear 5.1 dolby digital surround sound from the creative speaker (which does not support DD and DTS like Logitech z5500 and Logitech Z906 do). I have done tons of research and spend a lots of time in the internet to look for answers. I did find some solution on this issue but I am not 100% sure. And some more questions pop up. So I am hoping that some expert here can clear my mind. Thank you so much ^^ So, here is some solution that I got from the internet. (please correct me if I am wrong) 1. Buy a Griffin Firewave and connect it to my mac and thats all I need to do. As Griffin Firewave has dolby digital processor, so I think I will be getting 5.1 DD surround sound from the speaker. (Am I right?) Amazon.com: Griffin 4019-FIRESS FireWave Surround Sound for Macs: Electronics But the problem is, there is only one firewave listed on amazon and one listed on ebay. The amazon one is really really expensive that I think it is really unreasonable to buy it. So as I may not able to get a Griffin Firewave, this lead to my second solution. 2. Buy a external sound card like this: Amazon.com: Diamond External Xtreme Sound 7.1-Channel USB Audio Device: Electronics and connect it to the mac. But my question is, As I do not have any Dolby decoding device connected, will I getting 5.1 DD surround sound in my speaker? Or the program in my mac (i.e: VLC) already done the decoding and output as 5.1 multichannel analog so I don't need a extra decoding device? 3. As I am not sure about those method on the above will get 5.1 DD surround sound in my speaker, I keep digging and find out there is actually one more option. Since the iMac supports s/pdif output, what I need is to buy a Digital to Analog converter(DAC) and use the mini Toslink to connect my mac with the DAC. Then connect my speaker to the DAC. Some DAC I found: Amazon.com: Digital to Analog Audio Decoder Converter - Transfer the DTS/AC-3 Digital Signal and Stereo(R/L) Audio Signal into 5.1 Analog Output: Electronics Amazon.com: Digital to Analog Audio Decoder Converter - Transfer the DTS/AC-3 Digital Signal and Stereo(R/L) Audio Signal into 5.1/2.1 Analog Output: Electronics Amazon.com: Sewell Direct SW-29767 Digital to Analog Audio Converter: Electronics and most of DAC support DD/DTS decoding, I should be able to get 5.1 DD surround sound at the end. Is it correct? My question is, is this the right solution to get 5.1 Dolby? If Griffin Firewave is available, will the result of method 1 same as the result of method 3? Or is it better to use a receiver instead of DAC? I know I have so many questions, I hope I did not make it too troublesome. But I really want to know the answer from you guys. I really appreciate for those who read through this. I know my english sucks and cannot express myself very well. I do apologize for that. Anyway, please leave any thought on this, even a sentence or yes/no Thank you sooooooo much Frank

Hi there, new to the forums and will be the first one to tell you I'm an audio newbie, so bare with me ! I have a standard Creative 5.1 surround sound system for my PC ( http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/1731/inspirep580car9.jpg ) They are great for gaming, but I find they are no good for making music, headphones are good but I just dont like using them. And recently acquired a pair of Philips Hi Fi speakers and was wondering how I could use them with my PC .. Is it possible to replace the front left and right (5.1 speakers) with the Hi Fi speakers, or mount the speakers on to a headphone jack ? I've done a bit of reading and most suggest an amplifier but at the moment thats a tad expensive for me, and advice, info or suggestions welcome. Thanks for reading!

Ok- So yesterday I took delivery of three new Apple TV's to add in our showroom. We already use them in a few places for demo, makes a great content delivery system paired up with the remote app, have never had an issue with them. Took ATV #1 out of the box, Configured it, did the software update. Started testing it, and every few songs the remote app loses connection to it. Sometimes it will fail to play a selection. Tried every configuration I could come up with, still no joy. Keeps losing connection to the remote app. So this morning I took the new ATV #2 out of the box, did all the same setup, except I did not update the software. Finished the config, went to test, worked flawlessly. Just as good as the others in the showroom. Took out ATV #1 again, did a restore and re-configured. Still bad. I needed to get a conclusion, so I took ATV #2 which was working perfect, and did the software update. Upon completion, went to use, now it has the same problems as #1. I have #3 sitting here, and I am going to get it out and not update it. I'm thinking I need to take #1 & 2 back to the Apple Store to exchange.... Anyone else have this issue? The other Apple TV's I have in the showroom have not been updated for some time so thats likely why they still work. I see this type of issue out there in some of the fourms, but no conclusive resluts or fixes..... Thanks! Tom

I've been listening to the Blu Ray of this incredible album over the last week - it is truly magnificent! Steven Wilson hired Alan Parsons to be the engineer for this album and the sound quality is really outstanding - it is one of the best sounding albums in my collection Amazon.com: Raven That Refused To Sing (Steven Wilson) [blu-ray Audio]: Steven Wilson, not listed: Movies & TV Contents: - Album in 5.1 LPCM 24 bits, 96 Khz - Album in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround - Album in 2.0 stereo, 24 bit, 96Khz - Instrumental album in 2.0 stereo, 24 bit, 96Khz - Documentary on the making of the album I ripped the 24/96 songs from the Blue Ray, and I've also been listening to the album through my new Meridian Explorer DAC - it sounds heavenly! The album allegedly was recorded and produced with no compression and with a very wide dynamic range. It certainly sounds like it - but I'm wondering if anybody has done the spectral analysis to confirm from a technical point of view? If true - this is the way all music should be recorded and made available for us audiophiles to enjoy! Highly recommended album!

I have now been enjoying music in glorious surround for almost a year. I urge everybody to share good surround experiences, whether the source is SACD, DVD/BluRay, ripped or from disk or any other source. State source, way of playback and number of channels. Let me begin with my surround album from last night: Emil Richards - Joe Porcaro Allstar Big Band - Odd Men In 24/96 5.1 download from AIX Records - DVD Premium - The Emil Richards/Joe Porcaro All Star Big Band - Odd Men In Played with Decibel from internal HD on system listed below. Almost overwhelming big band experience, thanks Aix PS. This thread is inspired by Chris' thread Album of the Evening. I hope we surround connoisseurs can give the CA community a similar list of great surround experiences.