Connecting High End Speakers to a Computer?

[Obscurity]

I have quite a good (as far as I'm concerned at least) sound set-up in my room, and I use it heavily with my squeezebox for music, but I would love to be able to utilize my high end speakers on my computer for sound. My actual speakers on my PC are some fairly cheap 25 quid Speed Link speakers, which aren't too bad, but I also have a Denon UD-M30 amplifier with accompanying speakers. I currently don't have a sound card, but would be prepared to get one if it allowed me to connect these systems.

TL;DR Version: I want to make my PC sound come through my Denon speakers.

Anyone had any experience with this before?
Anyone know how to do it?

Thanks in advance

[Barry]

Optical out the your amp would be best quality but you could get away with just using a phono to jack on your line 1 or 2 in

[jim]

Your mobo has an optical out, but it looks like the Denon UD-M30 doesn't have optical in?

[Barry]

Oh, I didn't noticed the opt was out only!

phono to jack is the only real option

[kalniel]

Yup, which means he needs to convert from digital to analogue somewhere. Which can be one of:

1) Motherboard audio chip
2) Sound card audio chip
3) External DAC

And price and quality thereof are in roughly the same order

[jim]

Personally I'd be inclined to hunt around for an amp with optical in, they've been around for a fair while now... unless your current amp is really top notch and replacing it would be a pain (I haven't the faintest).

[Obscurity]

Thanks a lot, bought a jack to phono cable, It's on its way

[krazy_olie]

Yeh try that, if it sounds bad, buy a decent soundcard either external/internal.

[Obscurity]

Thanks for the advice everyone, the cable's arrived and a soundcard is coming tommorow, its already sounding goooooooood.

[Iain162]

Ive got a similar setup for my sound at the moment and find no problems with sound quality what so ever, i feel i get better balanced sound this way, ive owned the 2.1, 5.1 and 7.1 creative gigaworks systems over the years and feel they cant compete with a proper hifi solution.

Unless you want to pick at minor details a headphone jack to phono lead should be perfectly fine im using exactly the same connection but i shelled out for oxygen free cable with gold plated jacks since im already using high quality oxygen free copper speaker cables, you shouldnt need to do this but that was just my personal choice.

If you have any problems or concerns i'll be more than happy to look into it for you.

[peterb]

<---snip i shelled out for oxygen free cable with gold plated jacks snip--->

A man with money to burn.

But I'd agree, you shouldn't do this.

[g8ina]

Oooooohh soooo tempted

[Butcher]

Worth noting if you have an amp with digital coax in you can get optical to coax converters (and vice versa).