Got my receiver + speakers, should I connect analog/digital ?

[Twistid]

I picked up a Sony STR-DG520 and Sony SS-F7000 floor standing speakers , they sound pretty good , definitely a lot louder than my Bose Companion II's lol ... However I have a question...

Right now I have it hooked up with a mini-jack to RCA cable, from my headphone output to the input on the receiver...

The receiver supports digital in, and my Creative X-Fi Xtrememusic soundcard has digital out, so I would need a digital to minijack cable... would it be worth it to connect the computer to receiver with the digital cable ?

What am I losing by using the regular RCA cables instead of Optical Cable ? I think the only difference is the receiver will process the sound instead of the sound card?

[JimJ]

Headphone output of what?

[Twistid]

Sorry, headphone out of my computer.

[JimJ]

I'm not sure I'd really trust the onboard DAC in a receiver, but you could try it anyway.

[Twistid]

Ok, so I should just use the aftermarket sound card to output the analog signal to the receiver?

Here's the sound card that will be doing the processing

http://www.soundblaster.com/products...&product=14066

Right now I'm using onboard audio of my laptop (my computer has not been built yet) and while it gets louder, there is no increase in fidelity or accuracy over the Bose Companion II's ... I assumed it would sound atleast a little better having an aftermarket receiver + speakers instead of just a little all in one two speaker bookshelf system. Hopefully once I'm up and running with the X-Fi Xtrememusic it will sound alot better.

[JimJ]

That's what I'd do.

What are you using as source material?

Lossy MP3s are most likely going to sound worse on a higher-resolution setup...