Good multichannel amp for desktop PC?

[Nathan Raymond]

I use a set of Energy Take Classic 5.1 speakers for surround sound on my desktop PC, primarily for gaming:

https://www.energy-speakers.com/products/take-classic/?sku=TK-CLASSI-5-1

Sound comes from a Cubilux 7.1 USB Surround Sound (plug and play, uses standard USB audio drivers):

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CKPL5HXZ/

Right now I take the 5.1 analog audio outs and have them going into the 5.1 "Direct" inputs of an old Onkyo TX-SR304:

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/onkyo/tx-sr304.shtml

The receiver is on a rolling cart under my desk, and has a lot of additional functions I don't need (occasionally I bump it with my leg and change a setting accidentally). It would be nice if it did bass management, but the 5.1 direct input is not in the path of any signal processing, so no bass management. I've been on the lookout for something simpler and a bit smaller, affordable, and I really couldn't find much. 5.1 analog direct inputs were included on a lot of receivers back when SACD was a thing and for connecting DVD players that had their own surround decoders, but these days you only see pre ins and outs on the the upper end/flagship receivers, which would be total overkill. I don't want a bunch of small amps, and I don't want a giant multi-channel dedicated amp box either. I think I found something that might work (also about two decades old, so some risk) - the Elan D660. I have one on it's way to me now:

http://www.elanportal.com/supportdocs/catalog/d-im-d660.pdf

Intended for the pro installer market, it does six channels of amplification, all class-T. Hopefully it works well. Anyone know of any other options out there? Maybe something more current from the pro installer market in case this old one doesn't do the job? And if these old products do end up being my best option, any suggestions on keeping them running for years to come (i.e. should I plan to have the capacitors replaced at some point)?

Additional background: I used to use a Creative Sound Blaster X7 Limited Edition and a couple of class-T desktop amps to drive the center and surrounds, with the Sound Blaster providing some decent controls over the crossover point for the subwoofer and speaker delays:

https://us.creative.com/p/archived-products/sound-blaster-x7-limited-edition

There was a time on Windows PCs when Creative's EAX sound APIs were the gold standard, and even supported height information it could use when rendering the sound field (they had a good headphone HRTF so I found it particularly effective). Microsoft changed their driver architecture many years ago, and Creative provided legacy support both through a custom OpenAL driver and a DLL you could install alongside game executables to intercept the old system calls via a software solution called ALchemy that they bundled with the X7 and some of their other Sound Blaster products. Creative is no longer developing ALchemy and it is was largely limited to their hardware, which was frustrating, but people have come up with similar solutions for free that work with any modern sound card, such as this:

https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/65094

Physically, the Sound Blaster X7 was a lot of buttons to press to turn things on and off, knobs sometimes got bumped accidentally changing the volume levels on the center and surround channels with the additional amps, and there were a lot of wires needed to hook everything up and power everything. Switching from headphone to speakers or speakers to headphones while keeping the headphones plugged in, while possible, was a lot of clicking in the Creative software UI every time. And the Sound Blaster X7 is a discontinued product.

Once I learned the details about Equalizer APO and that it could do bass management, and with no real need for Creative ALchemy, I sought out a simpler USB based sound solution, which is how I ended up with the Cubilux 7.1. Between the Cubilux 7.1 and my amp I have a Pro-Ject Audio Systems Head Box S2 headphone amplifier, which has a pass-through line input, so to switch between speakers and headphones I don't need to plug/unplug anything, just change the speaker mode from 5.1 to 2.0, and turn on the headphone amp. I found I can easily do this with the free Nirsoft Sound Volume View app, which accepts optional parameters such as "/SetSpeakersConfig" so I have preset shortcuts set up via the command line to easily change the speaker mode with a click:

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/sound_volume_view.html

It also has "/SetSpatial" so I could create presets for different spatial audio processing as well. Overall, it's been great to move away from proprietary drivers for audio and switch to something that just uses standard built-in USB audio drivers.

Side note: Windows does have a very short list of games that can output Atmos audio with true height channels, but I'm not aware of any good near field Atmos solutions. I'm not going to ceiling mount speakers for my PC, don't want a big Atmos receiver connected to my PC, and I don't think Atmos sound bars are designed to work for near field listening.

 

[kyuu]

For your particular situation I don't really see a better option at these extremely low price points than what you're trying.

I'm curious why you're insistent on doing this in such a old-fashioned manner, however. You can send multichannel audio out of your PC through HDMI or S/PDIF nowadays. Is that not something you're interested in?

 

[Nathan Raymond]

For your particular situation I don't really see a better option at these extremely low price points than what you're trying.

I'm curious why you're insistent on doing this in such a old-fashioned manner, however. You can send multichannel audio out of your PC through HDMI or S/PDIF nowadays. Is that not something you're interested in?

My PC monitor is connected via DisplayPort, which is the preferred way to connect an HDR high-refresh computer monitor, not HDMI. No way to get multichannel audio out of my monitor. Even if I connected a monitor via HDMI to my computer, that would require a receiver (or something with the ability to decode multi-channel digital audio and ultimately drive 5.1 speakers) with the video signal being sent along with the audio, with the HDMI audio device between the computer and monitor so that it can present it's capabilities to the computer so the computer knows there is something that can handle multichannel lossless audio.

S/PDIF output from a computer does not support lossless multichannel audio, it only has the bandwidth for two-channel lossless. Using DVD/Blu-Ray playback software you can bitstream lossy Dolby Digital (AC-3) and DTS audio over the S/PDIF interface, but the options to send lossy multichannel PC audio (from a game for instance) are limited and are not bundled with Windows. Some sound cards offer it as an extra feature, and present a virtual 5.1 sound device to the operating system and then do realtime lossy compression to Dolby Digital or DTS (which takes some CPU overhead and adds some latency) and then sends that out over the S/PDIF connection. The commercial name for those solutions is Dolby Digital Live/DTS Interactive. Some on-board audio solutions from Realtek supported it officially, and there are ways to unofficially hack support into a broader range of on-board Realtek audio solutions, but I'm not interested in that. And even then, you'd still need an external Dolby Digital/DTS decoder and a way to drive speakers.

I could just use a set of "PC 5.1 speakers", i.e. a set of speakers with 5.1 analog inputs and built-in amplifiers for all the speakers designed for use with a computer, but I prefer the quality of the Energy Take Classic 5.1 (which is 5 passive speakers and one amplified subwoofer) and I'm pretty sure even my old Onkyo receiver is better solution than the amps they include in most PC speakers. Also PC 5.1 speakers aren't inexpensive, typically ranging in price from $400-$550 (Logitech Z906, SteelSeries Arena 9). What I've put together is likely better quality at a lower cost and gives me greater long-term flexibility, especially with my placement of a high-quality headphone amplifier directly as a passthrough device in the L and R channels.

 

[kyuu]

My PC monitor is connected via DisplayPort, which is the preferred way to connect an HDR high-refresh computer monitor, not HDMI.

What resolution and refresh rate are we talking here? Is it beyond what HDMI can support? I have nothing against Displayport, but when you're interfacing with consumer equipment you're generally dealing with HDMI which, depending what version your hardware supports, shouldn't have any issue supporting high resolutions at high refresh rates with HDR. Unless it's something unusual.

And even then, you'd still need an external Dolby Digital/DTS decoder and a way to drive speakers.

Yes, an AVR.

Like I said, for what you're trying to do, the solution you've settled on might be the best way to go. Particularly if you don't want to spend a lot of money.

But using HDMI to an AVR is certainly an option. There are options that aren't giant ugly boxes these days too.

 

[Nathan Raymond]

What resolution and refresh rate are we talking here? Is it beyond what HDMI can support? I have nothing against Displayport, but when you're interfacing with consumer equipment you're generally dealing with HDMI which, depending what version your hardware supports, shouldn't have any issue supporting high resolutions at high refresh rates with HDR. Unless it's something unusual.

I checked, and you're correct that in this case the monitor I'm using, a Samsung Odyssey Neo G7, supports 4k HDR 165Hz VRR 12-bit video over HDMI 2.1, so no loss there compared to DisplayPort 1.4 (I have other monitors where the HDMI inputs on the monitor are inferior to the DisplayPort). The res and features I'm using mean I'd need to get at least an HDMI 2.1 receiver.

Yes, an AVR.

Like I said, for what you're trying to do, the solution you've settled on might be the best way to go. Particularly if you don't want to spend a lot of money.

But using HDMI to an AVR is certainly an option. There are options that aren't giant ugly boxes these days too.

I checked, and there are some receivers, such as the Onkyo TX-SR3100, with HDMI 2.1a that go on sale for $250, but I'm going to guess the amp quality isn't stellar at that price. Probably ok for my desktop PC use, if I decide to go the modern receiver route (i.e. if the old amps I'm trying to use give up the ghost one of these days). I sure do wish someone made something smaller and simpler though - a modern, affordable 5 channel class-D or class-T desktop amp. I'm hoping the old Elan D660 can fill that role.

 

[JonnyK]

If it helps, here's my setup.

My PC has a 4.1 system running through a home theater receiver (Anthem Mrx510). Video goes to the monitor via DisplayPort as usual, which gives high refresh and gsync functionality. Audio is a separate HDMI connection directly to the receiver from the video card. I've got an Nvidia GPU which has multiple outputs, including HDMI, and it does support audio.

In Windows the receiver is detected as an audio video device. By the nature of HDMI you must send a video signal to get audio. So Windows thinks I have an extra monitor. I don't have a choice in that, so I keep this extra invisible monitor configured so it's unused and diagonal from the regular screen in the upper right corner (my mouse cursor won't move over to it at the edge of the screen this way).

I then configure the receiver as the default audio device and feed it 4.1 PCM lossless audio. It all works quite well, with no need for specialty audio hardware. All I do it feed a lossless digital HDMI signal to the receiver and it does all the rest.

It is a bit annoying that I've got a second ghost monitor. Sometimes Windows tries to put a window on that screen, but I've learned that if I click a window in the taskbar and it doesn't show then it's on the second screen and I can move it over with a Windows keystroke "Win+Left" (which moves the selected window left over to the current screen).

Good luck.

 

[richardm]

I have a similar set of requirements. The only realistic options I've found are the same two you've found -- either 5.1/7.1 analog to a multichannel amp or else HDMI to an A/V receiver.

Presently I have the latter and I'm using EqAPO for bass management.

The res and features I'm using mean I'd need to get at least an HDMI 2.1 receiver.

Why? Windows lets me run the A/V receiver at basically any resolution and refresh rate (independent of the monitors). I've needed to use the AVR's HDMI out only once to access some menu items. Otherwise it runs "headless."

To solve the "phantom monitor" issue I've mirrored the receiver with one of my four monitors -- even in this config I can run the receiver at 24Hz (to minimize pixel clock over a long cable run) and the mirrored display at 60Hz. The panels are connected to a dGPU and the receiver is connected to the motherboard's HDMI (driven by the processor's iGPU).

Have you seen this thread? One person reported that mirroring made the mirrored display laggy... I haven't seen this but then again I haven't loaded up any games either.

For the future I have my eye on this. I've yet to hear about anyone building with this module so I've no idea if it sucks. The "sound card" portion is an old C-Media chip with sub-par specs but IMHO for most of us I reckon it'd be acoustically transparent (i.e. good enough). It's probably the same chip as your Cubilux USB.