Hi,
first off: sorry for the bad picture quality i had only an iPhone available as camera....
First of the setup:
Here you see the 42" TV with an approx. 100" Projection behind it (both fullhd and running 24p fine).
The Speakers are Nubert paired with a cheap Sony AV-Receiver right beside the tv.
Now for the HTPC running XBMC:
The silver thing in the middle is a cheap Smart MX04 DVB-S receiver which used to decode paytv before they changed encryption. The Black Case on the right is the XBMC:
Case:
JCP MI 105
Mainboard/CPU:
IONITX-A-E Mainboard
The cool thing about this Mainboard is that it comes with an external Notebook Power Supply so there is not as much Power going into heat as it has a higher efficiency with its 80Watts than normal PC PSUs.
As for Connectivity:
From the left: PSU, WLAN, LAN, HDMI->DVI (TV), TOS Link, HDMI (Projector), USB Stick
The USB Stick is the only Drive i have in this box. I wrote the newest XBMC 9.11 Live CD on the USB Stick and run XBMC from that.
For Audio Quality I can only say that if you have a FLAC CD RIP transmitted via optical TOS Link to a AV Receiver there should be no loss in Audio Quality.
As for the people that do not transmit their sound digital but use analog 5.1 connection instead i would recommend a really good soundcard. Not those cheap onboard realtek chips. There are major differences in soundquality there!