I need some clarification on exactly what is meant by a statement from the PC manufacture of my computer. Right now I get sound via HDMI from my GTX 580 to my TV. I will be moving soon and am going to resetup my surround sound system to run off my computer. In that setup I can run the HDMI cable to the A/V receiver or I can run the individual cables from my card to the back of the receiver. If I can just use the HDMI cable and get the same sound quality as from the card I will be happy but I don't know if I can cause I am not sure what the following statement really means:
...utilizes a straight pass through cable connection from the video card to the HDMI signal.
To me this means the sound card is still doing all the processing and instead of directly outing from it's external sound out ports it is outputting to a cable that goes to the video cards allowing the sound to be passed along the HDMI cable and thus would give me the same quality sound from either direct output ports or HDMI. Is this correct thinking?
Edit:
On my system I have a "Creative Labs X-FI Professional Audio card (20K2) which is embedded into our custom motherboard." So from the sounds of things I am not using the 20K2 but a, probable, lower end sound processor on my GTX 580 and I would get better sound if I connected to the A/V receiver from the card directly. Also looking into what a SPDIF is it looks like I could use the Optical output from my card into the A/V receiver for full 5.1 sound from the card directly.?