If you are going to hard wire a computer onto a HT receiver, what is the best way to accomplish this? If I want to play 16/24 FLACs from my hard drive through my receiver what are my cable options? Keep that the receiver I will be getting will be a new 7.1 and all the inputs and outputs such that I am getting confused.......
I have never set up something like this before so just trying to get an easy 'lay of the land.'
Thanks!!
That's going to depend on your PC. What outputs do you have from your sound card??
Most likely you'll be going 1/8" out of the pc and RCA in on the receiver
JAson
what are your thoughts on external sound cards?
It's tough to answer specifically without more detailed information about your configuration. I'm going to assume your 7.1 receiver is a multi-functional device (tuner, DAC, preamp, amp) and accepts a digital coax input.
In that case, you would need an internal or external soundcard that provides a digital coax output. FWIW, I use an Audiophile 2496. Simply connect the soundcard's digital coax output to the receiver's digital coax input and you're all set. This requires a 75-ohm cable with RCA connectors on both ends. You'll then control your playback from the computer, using your software of choice. I like Foobar2000.