How do I listen to music on computer thru receiver


I am looking to pruchase a new SR receiver. I want to use it 50% HD and 50% my music library. I have copied my music to my desk top computer and would like to play from computer thru the new SR receiver. What make and model is recomended. $500 is budget. I just got into this audio stuff and I'm starting to enjoy music again. I have ERA D14's and PSB 25"s. I also have a Dynaudio c120. All sound fine with old receiver.

Thanks in adavance.
onehole
I'm not sure what you mean by "SR".
The easiest way to connect your computer to a receiver is to go from headphone jack (from computer) into auxillary at the receiver. This is usually done with a 1/4 plug from computer, the plug splits to 2 RCAs which connect to the receiver.
Good luck.
I'm also confused as to what you mean by "SR receiver". And when you mention "50% HD and 50% my music library", does that mean that 50% of your music is on a hard drive, and 50% is on physical media (such as CD's)?

Assuming you're trying to connect a computer sound card to a receiver, the easiest way is to get a receiver with digital input capabilities (any home theater receiver can do this), and connect the digital out (either Toslink or coax) from the sound card to the digital input on the receiver. Let the receiver do the D/A conversion.

Or, get a Squeezebox, then hook up a network cable (or use wireless) to the Squeezebox, and then either analog (L+R channel connnections) or digital (single coax or optical link) connections to the receiver. The advantage of this method is that it also works when you want the receiver in a different room than the computer.

Michael
Some clairification: All my CD's are coppied to my computer; I would like to use the SW on my computer to make play lists or do random plays and go through my new surround sound receiver. The other time I will use the receiver for HD TV viewing.
Thanks.

Gary
OK, so you're going to need a Home Theater receiver, as it will be able to handle video switching and extracting and processing audio information from DVD's and Blu-Ray discs. In this case, the simplest solution is to hook a digital cable (either a single coax link with RCA connectors on each end) or a Toslink (optical) cable between the digital out on the sound card (most have both connectors) to a digitla input on the receiver (again, most have both types of connectors).

Then use iTunes or whatever software to "play" the music on the computer, which will be sent digitally to the receiver. You may notice better performance with lossless audio files (FLAC, WAV, Apple Lossless, etc) than with low-bitrate MP3's. You may also experience better performance with Vista or Mac OS rather than Windows XP. (Check the archives for this topic.)

Michael
I think this might be what you're looking for:

http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_duet.html