Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions how to send computer sound output to stereo amp

My solution was pretty easy since my Pio 45TX has a USB input. I connect my Mac Mini to that port.

If you have wifi in your house, you might also consider using an Airport Express since that has an audio jack. Connect that jack to your reciever input.

Anyone have experience with the M-Audio Audiophile USB? I was looking for a USB/PCMCIA solution to add a lossless digital-out to a laptop so that I may use an outboard DAC (CIAudio VDA-1, possibly), but if this M-Audio has good sound then I'll do without the DAC. No need for surround, as I'll just use a 2-channel set-up. It uses its own power supply (wall wart) too, which I like.

So, anyone familiar?

M-audio makes great products though ive never heard that model.

Yeah, they also make a FireWire Audiophile, which has a steel chassis and may be a better solution than USB anyway. As per Thasp I've looked at the TerraTec's as well, and they make a very cool looking device called the Aureon 7.1 FireWire. Either way it looks like I'd be paying for some functions that I don't need (home recording, which is what the M-Audio's seem to be designed for), but if the sound is on par with an outboard DAC then I'd be happy.

Two big investmensts are going south ;-(

First I made a big investment in time to wire an optical TOSLINK cable from my computer to my 200 dollar Sony receiver - that investment intially worked great but..

This week I paid 900 dollar for a NAD 753 receiver and when I got it home it would not read the feed from the computer. Have been playing around with this for a couple of days and can't get it to work - girlfriend ( who was already sceptical of 'upgrade' is now thinking I have screw loose.....)

The NAD receiver plays the optical output from my CD player fine - it just cannot cope with the one from the computer - its 'Digital' indicator blinks on and off to indicate no input.

The CD player says it is outputing a sampling freq of 48KHz - when I send it to the Sony receiver, the receiver displays PCM 44.1. When I send the computer optical to my Sony receiver it displays PCM 48. It is happy to play both.

The NAD receiver does not give any indication of what sampling freq it thinks the CD player is sending it......

Sort of stumped - the sound card was a cheapish one recommended by Thasp - maybe a more expensive one would allow me to send at different freqeuencies and hope to hit on one the NAD likes??

Will be talking to NAD people today obviously....worried that becuase the CD player works, they will dismiss it as a crazy computer problem.....

1) Are you using TOSLINK or USB from your PC to NAD? If it's USB, perhaps it's a driver issue in Windows.

2) If it's TOSLINK, one test is to see if it's an issue w/ the digital connection. I did a similar test w/ my Tivo and Pio 45TX. My optical on the Tivo seemed broken. So I got an optical to coax converter box at Ratshack for $30. Then I connected to the digital coax, instead of optical, on the Pio. Still didn't work, so it meant that my Tivo optical was broken. Perhaps the NAD might like the coax better...

Using TOSLINK.

Your suggestion of using coax instead is definitely worth a try - however I am thinking that the sampling freq is at the heart of the issue and that might be the same across electrical/optical.

Another idea I have is maybe to get the latest driver for the soundcard - maybe it has more config options.