In a single word NO at the same price point. A 40K AVR will give you much better results than a 40K PC. To reach the same level of performance, you may have to go near to a 70-100K PC configuration.
Unless you are committed to using a HTPC in the long run, have extensive knowledge of hardware and software, are building up a library of movie/music software, are ready to experiment... and so on, I would not suggest that path.
Cheers
I still don't understand the comparison. Maybe I'm just plain stupid.
PC cannot amplify anything, and AVR cannot work without a source. Can one of the above posters please explain to my poor misguided soul how the two can be compared at all??
I still don't understand the comparison. Maybe I'm just plain stupid.
PC cannot amplify anything, and AVR cannot work without a source. Can one of the above posters please explain to my poor misguided soul how the two can be compared at all??
Partially yes,as a good soundcard can come close to AVR.
So PC can be considered as AVR preamp.Like Xonar D2X,which does all processing as AVR & need only amplification.
in that case why cant we use an active speaker set ? will there be any difference in the amplification by AVR and the standalone active speaker ?
The Quad 11L actives are great speakers for a modest increase in price from their passive counterparts. I am sure there are other active speaker candidates that are not prohibitively expensive?
Active speakers are certainly more efficient than passive speakers. But they also have a lot of negatives. They are harder to find, more expensive, and more demanding on your infrastructure. You need to provide power at all speakers points, the connectivity is more expensive. Active speakers today fall into either the low cost for connecting to a PC or MP3 player, or really high end such as the Meridian speakers that do everything including DAC, crossover and independent amplification for each driver.
Cheers
given the cost of decent active speakers, now i m clear, its better to have a good receiver and speaker setup. you get good connectivity too.. i am planning to have a HT setup, but only thing that pulling me back is, the scarcity of free time.. - to enjoy the set up.
given the cost of decent active speakers, now i m clear, its better to have a good receiver and speaker setup. you get good connectivity too.. i am planning to have a HT setup, but only thing that pulling me back is, the scarcity of free time.. - to enjoy the set up.
I still don't understand the comparison. Maybe I'm just plain stupid.
PC cannot amplify anything, and AVR cannot work without a source. Can one of the above posters please explain to my poor misguided soul how the two can be compared at all??
And badly, at that.
For starters, it uses a rail converter to convert the 12V rail into a 45V rail for the power outputs. THD is a spankingly poor 0.1%, and in a digital amp you push for at most .03% or .01% (ten times lower) because higher order harmonics dominate the distortion profile.
The output inductors are wound on ferrite cores, and do not compare well with other 100 watt amplifiers. Here is a pic of a 2 x 100 watt board, the coils are wound on much larger cores as you can see. http://connexelectronic.com/images/TA3020_Amp_v3b.JPG
Lastly, a proper 500-watt amplifier will be drawing something like 20-25 amperes from the 12V rail at half power output. Not many power supplies can take that kind of abuse without breaking down (somewhere else I mentioned the VX450, probably the only reasonably-priced power supply that will be able to cope).
If this is what the question was about, I would stay miles away from this kind of a solution. HTPCs put out enough heat as it is. You don't want an amplifier dumping another 40 watts (90% efficiency) of heat into the case.