HDMI and Sound

Sorry, I'm very ignorant of audio tech, so bear with me:

If I have an HDTV and a speaker system connected to this HDTV, and an HDMI port to connect my notebook to the HDTV--my sound card doesn't matter at all, right?
The sound information is transmitted digitally right to my HDTV->speaker system, so even if my laptop has crap integrated ac'97 sound or worse, it will sound golden since the sound card isn't part of the process at all?

 

Wrong, the sound card is still "making" that audio. It is just outputting it in a higher quality interface. If you have a bad headphone jack, this will not have that problem (most likely).

 

The thing to consider is that if you had a device like a dvd player that used hdmi it would be built to use hdmi for both sound and video.

Computers/Laptops sort of adapted hdmi quickly and did it as a way to replace dvi at first, meaning its very possible to have a setup where only the video card is connected to the hdmi port and there will be no sound.

This is more often true in desktops than laptops but it is still possible. Also if you do have the option to use sound thru hdmi you probably have to turn it on manually thru your sound control panel its usually not automatic from what I can see from other users feedback.

Oops I misunerstood your post from the title, above is good information so I will leave it.

As per your question the sound card does matter still. Sure the analog processing quality will not matter (amps and things of that nature) but it is still creating the digital processing of the audio so what ever digital signal it makes is what you will hear, its not the same for every piece of audio equipment or every computer sound card the quality of the chips and its audio processing engine can be different in quality.

More important is obviously what decodes that signal tho a full blown home theater system will do years better than a set of creative labs digital speakers.

 

Thanks for both your responses.

Would an after-market upgrade sound card purchased to fit into the Express Card slot be connected to the HDMI port? Or is it likely that only an integrated sound card could connect to the HDMI?

 

only the integrated audio card can send through the HDMI port AFAIK

 

I want to get more professional opinions on the sound quality of a "cheap" onboard solution vs a nice card for digital output. The difference between the two for analog is clear but thats because the quality of components is so important. Digital I think the difference is probably so small that it wont be noticeable. The biggest difference would probably be the bit rate and the output modes (dolby digtal dts, and all the other options. I am not familiar with most of it) The on board for my c90 is the Realtek HD and I think its very good, its just as good as the soundblaster xfi card for laptops in my opinion, because right now there is no real xfi for laptops its just a audigy 2 with an xfi name on it.

For PC the best card without a doubt is the Auzentec X-Fi Prelude (spelling) but its too expensive for my blood, hope by the time I build my next PC it has gone down. Its a X-Fi card but with more options, and much higher quality components. Targeted for Audiophiles but with all the "gaming" jazz of the x-fi and has all the home theater digital options.