7.1 is like twoL/R fronts, a center, two L/R surrounds, and another 2 L/R in the rear. These things are done with the existing sound information, probably separating the sound coming out of the rear center which is exactly what 6.1 adds. From my understanding 7.1 is actually a little funny, their is extra processing done (maybe in both encoding and decoding?) to create an extra 7th channel. this means it probably supports 6.1 and 5.1 as well. The pros might not get why we get confused but the names jump around a bit. These receiver and these DDL cards work fine. while the receivers and stuff say things like just Dolby Digital (5.1) and Dolby Digital EX (6.1). Dolby Digital Live is labelled onto these soundcards.

As a HT noob myself, I think I was making it harder than it has to be. I really want to eliminate S/PDIF as its low bandwidth is a real problem for multichannel audio.When you look-up DDL their seems to be a lot of mentions of PC's and video games. DAC1/DA10 level) that appears to Windows as a 6 channel sound card, with 6 line-level balanced outputs?Īlternatively, does anyone know of a standard 5.1/7.1 channel A/V receiver with a USB input that turns it into a sound card? so the obvious answer is 'duh, yes.'īut what I mean is - does anyone make something higher-end (ie. which surprises me given it's been a few years since I looked at DACs.ĭoes anyone make a pure USB multichannel DAC? I recognize that, by definition, a DAC is simply a soundcard. I've been searching, and I can't find anything useful. Maybe it would be better to look for a higher-end multichannel amp, and simply feed it directly from the pc. I only have one source, and that source can perform better processing than any amp could. but the more I thought about it, the more I realized. I was looking at the Pioneer Elite line, as it's gotten rave reviews. The amp is hooked to my htpc via toslink from a Turtle Beach Montego DDL (w/AC3 encoder for multichannel gaming!), and the PC is the only source. I've got some heavily modified Paradigm Titan v3's, and they're exposing too many flaws in the high end (using a sub for lows anyway). So I've got a Harman Kardon AVR-75 I want to upgrade. It's about my loudspeaker/ht rig, but there's no group more knowledgeable and trustworthy when comes to audio than head-fi.

So, this question isn't specifically headphone related as I'm still pretty happy with my DA10/K1000 rig. Other hobbies have kept me busy over the past few years, but with winter approaching, figure I'll be spending a lot of time indoors with nothing better to do.

Turtle beach montego ddl review