Omega Claro II vs Outboard Pre for 5.1/7.1

Velocitydreamer

My system is probably 70/30 Music/Movies, but music is usually listened to multi-channel (yeah yeah yeah, I know) in extended stereo. I use JRiver Media Center for all my music (almost all 320 or FLAC) and movies. So as my discussion title states, what would be the pros/cons of a good Sound Card vs Outboard Pre? Mind you, I'm not made of money... the pre's I'd be looking at are used $600 or under... preferably much under lol. I've seen the UMC-200 and 975, but don't seem to see much a benefit with going with one of those over a good soundcard except to use HDMI vs analog outs. I recently picked up a minty B&K Ref 7250 and love it, just want to do it justice as best I can, within my broke as... erm, broke butt budget. Any advice, well grounded in fact & experience, would be much appreciated fellow Polkies!

Velocitydreamer

It *'d out "a non-cursing word for behind" O.o?

tonyb

Got your ticket right here and well within anyones budget....grounded in personal experience too.

http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/ele/4892206308.html

Velocitydreamer

Thanks for the heads up! I would prefer to go HDMI, but no chance I can afford a good pre/pro that has hdmi 1.3+. So with that, it's 7.1 capable (may go that route soon), how do input 8ch into it? I thought Coax and Optical were only capable of 6ch?

tonyb

Nope, they can do 7 channels. All you would need is a Blu-ray player with analog outputs like an Oppo. You did say mostly music too.

Velocitydreamer

I apologize, I wasn't very clear on that part lol. Multi-Channel Music isn't actually what I meant, my bad :P Meant 2ch running extended stereo. So analogue would be my only option with 8ch on that pre? Would it have any advantage as oposed to a 8ch soundcard or?

tonyb

Whats 8 channel ? You mean 7.1 ?

The ref 30 processor, will do digital toslink/ coax/ or analog inputs. In order to get the newer codecs for movies, you'd need a BRP with analog outputs.

If your only going to use it for stereo, music....and you have separate amps, what else do you need ? You can set up any number of combinations, 2 channel 4 channel, all channel stereo, etc.