What can I do to improve the audio quality of my HT setup

[nikhilstomer]

I used to have HTPC with a Quad Core processor, Nvidia 8400 GS with HDMI out, Asus Xonar DX sound card connected to my Sony AV receiver over Optical cable.

Setup:
Quad Core Processor
Nvidia 8400 GS HDMI
Asus Xonar DX
Sony A/V receiver
Sony Front Towers and Rears
Polk Center CS20 and Sub

Now I have replaced my HT with a PlayON HD box because of regular hardware failures and the audio quality has degraded drastically

Please suggest what else can be added to this setup to improve the audio quality. Is there a Media player better than Playon HD in terms of Audio quality. I had done enough research before buying the POHD and am able to get Dolby Digital and DTS to my A/V receiver too but the quality is not as before.

 

[no1lives4ever]

I have used a Asus O!Play Mini, a HP Pavilion Laptop with SPDIF based HDMI audio, a sony Vaio Z with proper HDMI audio and a PS3 to stream DD & DTS audio to my AVR. I have never faced any issues with the source when streaming the same audio track to the AVR using HDMI.

If you still have your HTPC around, it would be reasonably simple to setup both the HTPC and the PlayON HD to see if there is any real difference due to the source or if something else changed in your setup to cause audio quality issues.

-- no1lives4ever

 

[abhi_jollyguy]

You can buy an external DAC.

 

[nikhilstomer]

Please suggest which external DACs are available in India and where?

 

[contentedbloke]

You haven't mentioned how you have connected the playon media player to the avr.

In order to isolate the problem, try to bitstream the same track through hdmi or optical spdif from both players to your avr. Since it's only the avr which is doing the processing, you should not be able to see a difference between both source players.

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