  Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 (Source: Auzentech)       Comments
   Threshold   RE: Ummm... By DragonMaster0 on 6/14/2007
10:48:39 AM , Rating: 2 When you go with $1000 receivers I don't
know if there's much difference, but you do skip the
compression, which is the nice part of it. Yes, at very long
distances, analog doesn't work(well), but we have to think that
a coaxial connection wouldn't do much better. (There, fiber is a
pretty good solution)  There are different optical specs, but
they are quite uncommon. ADAT Lightpipe can carry 24/48kHz
8-channel audio, and MADI can do 32 24/96 channels over fiber or
coax cable.  HDMI is supposed to get uncomporessed multichannel
sound one day AFAIK, but it would probably not work for you
because of the distance... Isn't there a future standard
comparable to HDMI which is going with optical lines?  You might
be able to get what you need in a few years, but you will need
component upgrades, unless someone comes with an affordable
standalone multichannel DAC that could