Hi Guys....after spending weeks trawling the web looking for the best solution for audio output for my newly built Media Center, I have come away none the wiser....too many choices based on personal taste etc. I have decided to use a good quality amp and speaker set-up for music and a small 2.1 set up for video. My MoBo is a  Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H nForce 630i with intergeral 106dB SNR ALC889A HD audio. Is there in existence a piece of kit that will split the audio output from my MC and switch between outputs to both speaker set-ups.

You are truely wise men and I await your musings with great hope.

Cheers

Iain

i'm confused.

so for music, you are connecting to an amp & speaker.

but then for video, you have a set of 2.1 computer speakers?

And you want MCE to be smart enough to know if you're playing music or videos & switch to the proper audio output?

Assuming i understood all that right, then the answer is NO. The only way i know you could do it, would be to connect through an MCE Extender. I found in my review of the HP MediaSmart Connect that it will simultaneously output to all the audio, both digital and analog. Of course, not perfect for your scenario, but close.

...as i think about it, you should just connect your 2.1 speakers to your amp, and then you don't need to worry about it. Let us know more information on what you're thinking with this proposal & we can help more.

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Mike Garcen
TGB Moderator | MissingRemote Editor/Reviewer| Microsoft MVP - Media Center
My MCE Setup

Hi shadymg...thanks for the reply. This is my first media center build and  my knowledge of Audio/Video output is a bit sketchy at best. However, even I didn't think that MCE could automatically switch between outputs.

 I was hoping there might be a audio splitter with one input from the media center and a 2 way output to the 2 speaker setups and I could manually switch between settings. There are lots of spitters on the market that do it the other way round. I could as you suggest use my amp ( Denon PMA500  ) as a switch but my 2.1 speakers ( Logitech Z-4s.... not purchased yet) are active and I'm unsure if I can hook them up to the amp without distortion.

Sorry if this is all newbie ranting....steep learning curve for me..... thanks for your patience.

PS Are you aware of any web sources that would teach me more about audio/video output??

Many thanks

Hi idm747,

can you tell us why you are needing this type of setup, we may then be able to advise better!

Tony

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AMD64X2 6000+ | 3Gb Ram | 750Gb Maxtor SATA TV | 200Gb Samsung Spinpoint for Vista | ASUS M3N 78 PRO | FloppyDTV + Dragon CAM | Pinnacle 7010ix | XFX 8600GT Silent Video Card | LG Blu-ray/HD DVD Drive | Xbox 360 | Arcsoft Total Theatre

Hi Tony

I dont want a surround sound system. All my music is in mp3 format and stored on a server and I would prefer to listen to it through a traditional HiFi stereo set up...hence the amp and speakers. I want video ( DVD and stored AVI ) sound to be central to my television so I dont want to hook video sound up to my music speakers. I thought Z-4s where a good option for video because of the unobtrusive speakers.

I would like to be able to manually switch between outputs dependent on the source.

As I said earlier I'm very green when it comes to audio/video outputs....particularly in a media center setup. Not really sure what I'm doing.

Here,s my hardware setup.

Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H nForce 630i
E6600
Antec Fusion 430
2 Gb 8500 Ram
Vista Home premium

PS....I have an old x1950 Pro 512...would I be better installing the card rather than using the on board graphics?? and would I be better installing a dedicated sound card??

Cheers

Iain

Onboard sound is fine. If you're using digital pass through (coax or toslink), it doesn't do anyting but bypass your soundcard and go straight to your receiver anyway.
From the way I understand what you're asking, that's not going to happen unless you have 2 computers. One for video and one for mp3 music.

OK. Can I take an audio output from the card in the Media Center, run it through a 2 way switch/splitter which has a selector on it. That way I could control which speakers has playback....music through my amp and video/tv through my Z-4s.

Cheers

Why not just use an 1/8" Y adapter: http://www.google.com/products?q=1%2F8+y+adapter&show=dd and then leave both sets of speakers hooked up all the time?  Then just turn off the set you don't want to use at any given time.

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Just my $0.02.

That would be wickedly simply. I did think about but assumed there would be some degrade in audio quality......guess at $3 a pop I should have given it a try.

Thanks for all your feedback and apologies for my newbeeness

Iain

idm747:

That would be wickedly simply. I did think about but assumed there would be some degrade in audio quality......guess at $3 a pop I should have given it a try.

Thanks for all your feedback and apologies for my newbeeness

Iain

We all start somewhere. 

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Just my $0.02.

I thought you were talking about a digital connection.

Sorry...maybe my post was lacking in detail. I'm not sure that the digital v analogue debate is over. I'm sticking with analogue until digital is to good to miss.....long way from there yet.

Cheers

Iain

Well, the sound files are all digital. And if there's a digital connection, then no loss in signal. Other than that, I don't think there's much difference. Have you compared the 2 yet?

What you may want to consider is having a single output go to the stereo amp, and have the amp have a dual speaker setup. The old Technics system I inherited from the grandparents has the "dual zone" ability, which should take care of that.

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Gateway FMC-901 XP Pro MCE 2005
nVidia PureVideo Platinum Decoder Pack
2 gig RAM
120 GB main HD
500 GB secondary drive w/ ripped DVDs
Samsung 46" LCD TV

Thanks for all your advice guys.....taken a lot of it on-board. This is what I've done and it works rather well.

PC Out-put into a 3 way audio switch. Then one through my amp for music and one connected to my Z-4s for video. I just switch between speaker setup dependent on source. Cool....job done

Thanks again

Iain