How to connect a HTPC to your Audio Receiver

July 25, 2008 · Filed Under How-To Guides 

In this article we will be explaining how to connect your Home Theatre PC to an audio receiver. We will explain what hardware your HTPC needs, what cables you need, and how to connect it.

To be able to connect your HTPC to your audio receiver you don’t need much hardware. Most soundcards and onboard motherboard sound are able to do this, because they are just passing the output to another device, and don’t need to do any processing.

If you have an old audio receiver, the type that takes in audio/stereo input, then all you need is a 3.5mm stereo plug, to 2 RCA y cables. Good quality ones can usually be found for about $10 in electronic stores. All you do is plug in the 3.5mm plug into the line-out of your soundcard (usually the green plug), and the 2 RCA plugs into your audio receiver. Just a note, you can also connect the 3.5mm plug into your speaker-out jack of your HTPC. This has the advantage of being able to control the volume from your HTPC and your receiver, rather than just your receiver, but you have to be careful, as if you have your HTPC volume low, and your receiver volume high, you can damage your speakers.

Connecting digital is a bit more complicated. The two most popular digital formats are DD (Dolby Digital) and DTS (Digital Theatre Systems). There are a few ways to do this:

The first way is you can run 3 sets of 3.5mm cables into the multi-channel input of your amp. Your amp may or may not have these connections. This means that your soundcard will be doing all the sound decoding, which is probably what you don’t want (as this kind of defeats the purpose of having an amp), so this is NOT a good way to connect your HTPC to your audio receiver.

The 2nd way is using a S/PDIF interface. This can be done using either a coaxial or optical fibre cable. There are mixed opinions on whether coaxial or optical is better quality. Most professionals I have talked to seem to think coaxial is slightly better. It depends on your soundcard support as well, so unless you want to do lots of research on which soundcard sounds better, I would personally recommend just doing whichever one is easier for you to set up. So if you have chosen a coaxial soundcard (usually more soundcards support this), get a coaxial cable or if you have an optical soundcard get an optical cable. Then it is just one cable connection, from the SPDIF out on your HTPC, to the S/PDIF in on your Audio Receiver.

One thing to note is to be careful when picking a soundcard, just because it says 5.1 channel doesn’t mean it has SPDIF out. It means that it can use all the 3.5mm stereo jacks, that using software can output surround sound. This is good if you are going to use computer speakers for surround sound, but not to connect to a receiver. So make sure the soundcard you are purchasing has a SPDIF output.

So hopefully this has helped you determine how to connect your HTPC to your audio receiver. Although at first it looks hard, it is actually quite simple. All it is a matter of is finding what output your computer has and what input your receiver has, and buying the right cable to go in between.

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Comments

One Response to “How to connect a HTPC to your Audio Receiver”

  1. D on August 11th, 2008 3:58 am

    SPDIF is not complicated at all, and the quality of your soundcard makes no difference. With SPDIF you are sending an untouched audio signal to your receiver, then the receiver decades it. The soundcard is not involved with decoding at all, so it makes absolutely no difference if it’s onboard, or a $400 soundcard.

    If you have a good receiver, and a nice Home theater system, then all you need to pick is a motherboard with a SPDIF output. It will then send the sound stream right to the receiver, so it can be decoded their, doing the work instead of a soundcard.

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