My current Yamaha Receiver is loosing its life and my wife gave green lights for a (budget) replacement ;)
Here is what I want to do:
I have all my music on a dedicated music computer (mp3s, iTunes) and also listen to internet radio (shoutcast, pandora) a lot. Currently I simply run from the sound card line/out to the receiver RCA in, which is naturally pretty noisy. I want to change this with the new system.
There seems to be a lot of different ways of hooking up the computer to a receiver/amp:
* a new soundcard with digital output (SPDIF?) This would probably get ride of noise from the cable and the connector at the soundcard ($250 ? ).
* an external soundcard This would at least get ride of noise introduced by various computer parts inside the computer ($150 ?)
* a DAC (e.g. Weiss Minerva). But I am not sure I really understand how this works (>$500 ?)
* an amp or receiver with USB input. Some newer models accept audio signal via USB input (e.g. JVC RXD411, Outlaw RR2150) (>$500)
* and there are some emerging higher-end models with Ethernet capabilities (e.g DLAN from YAMAHA). But in some of those cases they do not support all music formats. so how is this better than USB? Plus, they have all kinds of other features I don't need. (>$750 ?)
Now, all I want is an integrated stereo amplifier (two channels) with around 80Wpc (+-20), two or more line inputs, two speaker outputs with speaker selection (A,B,AB), volume control, a treble, bass and balance control, a power on/off switch
AND
a way to get it to play audio from my computer without too much noise/discoloration/distortion, etc.
If I had all the money in the world this would not be so much of a problem, I guess, but unfortunately I am quite restricted. My wife was thinking of $300, I think I can push this to $500 but really I wished I could just shell out $700 to get the Outlaw.