[mythtv-users] Powered 5.1 speakers or A/V Receiver?

[Kisner, Thomas]

>I use Myth for basically my entire home entertainment setup.  I
>currently use some Logitech powered speakers directly connected to my
>Diamond Extreme 7.1 sound card.
>
>Is this the best way to provide quality sound or should I look at
>getting an A/V receiver connected via digital coax or spdif?
>
>The current set up is ok, but I am looking to add perhaps THX support
or
>better/louder sound.
>
>Thanks for any input --
>
>Norm 

Well it's not the "best" - you can spend almost an infinite amount of
money on high quality speakers that will hook up to a receiver.  Also,
you can spend up to $1000 on an AV receiver.  The SPDIF connection just
sends the digital sound to the receiver, and *any* receiver/speaker
combo that is better quality higher and higher powered than your
Logitech set will be *definitely* achieve the louder and probably the
better objectives.  Right now the card is doing digital/analog
converting work of a receiver which is not bad quality, but it has
limited amplification - most all the amplification is on the speaker
side, and your limited to what Logitech gives you (which is like 15
Watts RMS per channel), piped to dirt cheap crappy speakers.  

Lots of cheap (<$100) 5.1 receivers can give you 100 watts per channel.
That's *plenty* loud for most people.  Then you can pick whatever
speakers you want, which would be almost guaranteed to be better quality
than the Logitech no matter how little you spend.

I don't about THX support in myth (I just have a 5.1 receiver).  I think
there is a way to up-convert 5.1 to 7.1 in Linux, but I haven't done
that either.  I have a friend that has a 7.1 and THX setup (he doesn't
use Myth) and it's very nice and a definite step up from 5.1 Dolby
surround, but I just don't have/watch enough content that uses it to
care yet.  All HDTV is in 5.1, so were just talking movies for higher.
I'm also limited in the fact that my wife does care about surround sound
at all.

There are lots of other benefits to having a receiver, like being able
to hook up other stuff to it like video games.  Also, I don't know if
it's a consideration but remember you'd get a radio too.