Help with getting a 7.1 Audio Setup

OhaiItsBrad · September 3, 2017

So recently I got my hands on a Pioneer AV Receiver VSX-923, and thought it would be pretty neat to get my PC hooked into it and have a 7.1 audio setup.
BUT.... I have no idea if I can even do that.

I would be very appreciative if anyone could help.
I have a Pioneer AV Receiver VSX-923 (as stated earlier), an Asrock Xtreme 4 Z270, and an EVGA GTX 660 Superclocked. If you need any other information about my setup, i'm, happy to provide, I only listed the parts of my PC with any kind of port.

(Also, on a side note, at the moment I have it hooked up via Optical SPDIF, but I hear this only supports 2 channel audio. Could someone confirm if this is true or not?)

Enderman · September 3, 2017

It's only 2 channel if it's uncompressed, otherwise it can do 5.1 or 7.1.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF

Also, you could use HDMI as an audio output to get 7.1.

dj_ripcord · September 10, 2017

You can totally do this!

Lucky for you, your board has Toslink Optical Output. And your receiver has an optical input! All you need is one of these .

That should allow you to get wonderful 7.1ch audio.

anothertom · September 10, 2017

HDMI is a much better option than optical.

So longs as you're not trying to use 4k60 or HDR (which going by your GPU you're not) it should be as simple as plug and play and select the correct playback device.

Questargon · September 10, 2017

I can agree to what @anothertom said. HDMI can transmit multiple PCM streams at once for multichannel sound and is supported by every soundcard with a HDMI or DP-Output, while Toslink / S/PDIF only supports AC3 - a compressed format that has to be encoded prior to being transmitted to the receiver. For multichannel over S/PDIF you'd need something like Dolby Digital Live or DTS connect, but these add latency to the audio signal.

You could even hook up the receiver with HDMI and transmit audio only while gaming using a separate DP connection. The HDMI connection in windows 10 is like a regular soundcard and can be easily configured there (first switch on the receiver, then the PC so it recognizes the audio capabilities of the receiver before configuring the audio setup).

HTH