Audio Cable Question - Supplementing HDMI (1 Viewer)

[Xander H]

I've got my computer hooked up to my Onkyo TX-NR3007 via an HDMI cable coming out of my video card and for the most part it works perfectly with my 7.1 sound setup and my HDTV. However, when I'm using the PC and I switch from working in the front room to working in the bedroom it causes a problem on the PC where it will stop playing audio and lock out the HDMI so it is disabled and can't be re-enabled. The video is fine, but no matter what I try I can't get it to output audio over the HDMI again without restarting the PC. I don't have any idea how to fix the problem (not sure it can be fixed), but the video will always work so I figured I could just connect the audio separately and avoid the whole issue. My motherboard has outputs for coaxial, optical, and multi-channel RCA so I'm wondering which of those will give me the best sound working in concert with my HDMI cable. Can any of those carry the same quality signal that HDMI does? Thanks in advance!

 

[Xander H]

bump No one has any ideas on the best audio cable to use with HDMI? I know it's not very common to need one so there probably isn't a wealth of personal experience, but no one has any thoughts at all that can help me out?

 

[gene c]

As far as the sound qualty goes, with digital sound the coaxial and optical connection will sound just as good as the hdmi. All three are didgital and the proceccing is done inside the 3007 (unless the sound card is outputing LPCM). Only difference is coaxial and optical can't output Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio, if you even have access to those formats (usually found on BluRay discs). The sound quality of the multi-channel analog inputs would depend on the quality of the digital-to-analog converters being used but chances are they aren't better than the DACS in the 3007. I'd use the coax or optical.

 

[Xander H]

Thanks a lot, I appreciate the help!

 

[jayjose01]

Hi, I'm not sure if your problem is fixed already. Based on my experience, PC (windows 7 to be exact) often encounters issue when switching sound output device (normally happens when the current/default sound device suddenly been changed in what so ever reason) when something is being played. The normal fix for the issue is to stop the media that is playing and close the application that's playing it and then open it again (if you are watching a streaming video through a web browser, you'll need to close the browser and open it again). Again, this is only based solely on my experience.