What sort of Amp do I want?

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I have three desktop computers, one has a Turtle beach santa cruz sound card, another has an Audlgy sound blaster 2zs, and the other a something similar?
They have midi sockets and jackplug sockets for front and back and subwoofer speakers.
I play my music dvds and games from these computers.
I also have a TV for the occasional old video and a Denon Cassette player.
At the moment I have them all connected to a 4.1 system that has an integrated amp.

So, I wish a new amp and am confused as to what I need.
I presume I will need something described as a 5.1 amp to retain the surround sound and that a stereo amp will not split the sound between the five speakers and a sub woofer?

The trouble is, when I look for 5.1 amps, they are listed as A/V receivers which I am not even sure what they are, the main thing though is that rather than jack plug input sockets, they all seem to have HDMI so how would I connect my sound cards to such?

It depends. I believe that HDMI is video only. Does the card have RCA jacks on it? Even better yet, does the card have SPDIF jacks on it?

SPDIF jacks look like RCA jacks,and essentially they are, but instead of analog audio, they are digital audio. Most decent Home entertainment stuff made in the past 10 or so years should have SPDIF jacks on it.

An AV Reciever is essentially the same as the old standby stereo recievers of the past, in the fact that they have an amplifier section, a preamp section and a radio tuner section integrated into a single package. The differance though is that there will also connections for the audio portion of the video signal, most likely more inputs for AV components, and if it's a 5.1 system, separate amplifier sections for the center audio channel, L/R front stereo channels, and L/R rear stereo channels. The subwoofer will be a mono channel that may or may not have a dedicated amplifier for it, as a lot of subwoofers have a built in power amp.

Thanks for the answer.
No my cards just have jack plug sockets and a midi socket as well on two, and a spdif on the third, though I dont know what cable I need for it?
The other two cards do have spdif capability via jack.

As leads are available to convert jack to rca phono, does it matter my cards are jack?

The sort of help I need though is for somebody to post an Amazon link to a amp or two saying, "this will do what you are looking for".

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Surround ... tem+for+tv

Plug-and-play setup
Quick-access inputs make it easy to connect your laptop, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, iPod, DVD player and more.


Rich 3D stereo surround sound
The speakers also convert simple 2-channel stereo (like your old video games and CDs) into immersive surround sound.

I have something similar at the moment that needs replacing, hence my inquiry. Though it doesn't have the extra plug in connectors, I have had to daisy chain in additional devices such as my Video and Cassette players.

I was looking this time though for separates to do the same job, rather than a poor amp built into a subwoofer.
Something like This:- http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yamaha-Channel- ... /amplifier
Whilst those HDMI sockets would be of no use to me, would this amp take dedicated phono sockets for surround sound/Front back etc speakers?

http://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/audio- ... mode=model
instruction manual available for download

SPDIF cable is a regular RCA cable. You will not need anything fancy, just a regular cheap RCA cable that you probably already have available.

On two of my cards, SPDIF is mini-jack, on the third it is optical.
When I look at AV amps, the SPDIF is optical, so I could connect one of my computers, will SPDIF transmit the genuine surround sound?

This doesn't resolve the question re my other two computers though, one of which is the one where all my music is stored and played from, and my other older devices such as the TV which certainly doesn't have SPDIF

On the "Creative Website" (Link), it tells you how to connect up the soundcard to a AV receiver amp, shows you connections on the back of the amp labeled "Front" "Curr" "Center" "Back", but doesn't tell you which amp has these connections and I am unable to find an amp with these connections, but they must exist otherwise Creative wouldn't tell you how to connect your computer to one.