Assuming SPDIF output, what makes one soundcard better than another?

[Eriatarka]

Originally Posted by regal

There is one very important feature you need in a SPDIF soundcard : ASIO.

The difference in sound quality with a bitperfect digital output is huge.

I wouldn't buy any thing under a PCI EMU 0404.

Can you explain? The wikipedia page wasnt very helpful.

As far as I can tell, ASIO support is a driver issue rather than anything to do with the physical soundcard, and there are generic ASIO drivers that work with all/most cards.

Also how big is the difference? I'm a bit sceptical over the claim that theres a major difference between playing music in Windows and playing it in Linux, although I havent researched the matter at all

I wouldn't buy any thing under a PCI EMU 0404.

Why? This seems to work for all soundcards: ASIO4ALL - Universal ASIO Driver

[regal]

You need a native ASIO driver card to get bit perfect output. Very few of the ASIO4ALL+sound card combos actually deliver a true bit-perfect output. It is worth the extra dollars to get native ASIO support, the difference in bit-perfect and non-bitperfect is huge.

When I first setup my EMU card I didn't have the ASIO drivers configured right. I failed the DTS test. Once it was setup right I heard a major improvement.

Search here not Wikipedia, there is a lot of info.