HDMI speakers

[Platinum]

Thinking of at some point getting the Xonar HDAV1.3 sound card for my media box but im confused as to what speakers to hook up to it.
The sound card does the decoding so am I right in thinking all I need would be something that can pass the signal through and output?, No fancy amp needed?
Second question are there many HDMI speaker sets out there? cant see much?

[Skinleech]

No, you need an HDMI enabled amp in order to get bitstreaming out of the Xonar HDAV - the soundcard sends the unmolested audio signal, and the Amp decodes the signal to the speaker setup you have. YOu also need a video input into the HDAV card for it to work.

You can just send your video from your mobo into the card via HDMI or DVI to HDMI if you don't have HDMI out. The HDAV passes both audio & video at the same time.

The standard HDAV also has stereo analogue outs, as well as an optical for Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS output. If you go for the Deluxe card, it adds an analogue daughterboard to the package so you can bypass the need for HDMI audio and send the signal over up to 8 channel analogue.

Finally, make sure you get a 2009 model Xonar, which supports 24p video. You might not need 24p as yet, but I've been battling to get my 2008 model updated to a 24p model for 3 months now, so I would advise getting a 2009 model to save any future issues.