Hooking Up A Pc To Home Theatre

[camerata]

Has anyone hooked up their PC to a home theatre or big stereo? I'd need a 3m cable to do it, so I wonder if it's worth it. When I listen to Radio Bangkok through my old Akai PC speakers the sound is pretty impressive - especially the bass - but it has a kind of "boxy" tone to it. I wonder how much it would improve through a quality amp and speakers. Perhaps that would only make the defects in the streaming audio more obvious.

[Firefoxx]

Well, the quality of streaming audio isn't meant to be compared to CD/DVD audio, but PCs have been used in home theater applications for quite some time. If you use the PC to playback CDs or DVDs, it would be quite good. If you're an audiophile, remember that all the components affect the sound quality, from the source to the speakers and cable.

[TizMe]

I think that the sound would be terrible. Its just like MP3s, they sound ok through headphones on a walkman but sound pretty horrible when compared with an original CD on a decent quality Hi-Fi.

[camerata]

Well, the quality of streaming audio isn't meant to be compared to CD/DVD audio, but PCs have been used in home theater applications for quite some time.  If you use the PC to playback CDs or DVDs, it would be quite good.  If you're an audiophile, remember that all the components affect the sound quality, from the source to the speakers and cable.

Right. What I'm interested in most is those one-minute audio samples on Amazon, because I make buying decisions based on how they sound. It's difficult to pick out the details of classical music on PC speakers. Maybe I should plug in a good set of headphones instead.

[Firefoxx]

Agreed, PC speakers, even the upscale ones, can't reproduce the detail found in music. Even fairly cheap headphones will let you hear a lot of things that you usually don't hear with your speakers.

[camerata]

It turns out that 3 metres is a standard length for this type of cable and they are easy to find. I'm pretty impressed with the results after hooking up the home theatre. There tends to be a lot of bass and not so much dynamic range, but online radio stations and Amazon sample audio clips are very clear.