Which privdes a better connection to DAC/Headphone amp? Xi-Fi Titanium HD vs Essence ST vs onboard!

Hi,

I'm trying to upgrade my PC for now, wondering which the best choice is:

1. X-Fi Titanium HD -> AKG702

2. Essence ST -> AKG702

3. Xi-Fi Titanium HD S/PDIF out -> Headphone DAC/AMP (DA&T HA-2) -> AKG702

4. Essence ST S/PDIF out -> Headphone DAC/AMP (DA&T HA-2) -> AKG702

5. Onboard Realtek HD S/PDIF out -> Headphone DAC/AMP (DA&T HA-2) -> AKG702

6. USB -> Headphone DAC/AMP (DA&T HA-2) -> AKG702 (This is 24bit /192kHz as well over USB)

7. Any other option...

I'm pretty much stuck not sure which path to take, and has been sitting infront of my PC for research for a while (2 months?). My wife could not take it anymore today and ask me to make up mind and do my purchase quick :P My budget would be somewhere 3k, so I think there should be sufficient room here... Feel free to suggest anything into this budget; PC will be my main transport.

Usage:

1) Music on foobar

2) Play annoying DTS CDs/RIPs that I have failed to play on my computer. (Managed to play them on wav format and “5.1 to stereo” DSP for now, not the wma format)

3) RIP DSD/SACD format files and play them from Foobar - Still looking on how to convert them to audio format wav/wma.

I will probably add amps and pair of floor stand speakers to this setup in future; that will probably take another 3 months sitting in front of PC doing research every night before getting my wife's next budget approval...

The final move, is to setup my home theatre with the same system ~~ 1 year down the road? LOL.

Edit: Read further and found ST seems to be the more preffered card. Changing from STX to ST.

Thanks for your input songdawg. You are right, either way, the DAC and Amp will not be used on the sound card.

My concern is which one provides the better interface to the dedicate preamp+headphone (let’s call it preamp for short.), providing a cleaner source, with additional support such as DS3D/DTS/Dobly.

There are 3 available options to connect to the preamp IMO. The first, S/PIF out from onboard sound chip – this option almost confirmed out, as it only supports 96khz sample rates, and no support for WMA-Pro, DTS nor Dobly.  Do the remaining 2 options would be to either

1. Connect though a sound card via coaxial cable, using the sound card audio processor - which I assume this adds the support for Dolby / DS3D / DTS, correct me if I'm wrong.
2. Connect the preamp via USB cable which also supports ASIO and 192kHz sampling rate. - I'm having an impression the preamp DSP it may not support as much feature as the sound card's DSP.

Looking at the price of the preamp, a sound card would be a relative small investment, so I’m willing to pay for it even if I’m not fully utilizing all the components on it.

I’m not sure if I get the terminology right (relatively new, please forgive me). Attached is the information I’ve got from Asus official website, hope this help to express my points:

Audio Processor:
ASUS AV100 High-Definition Sound Processor (Max. 192KHz/24bit)
24-bit D-A Converter of Digital Sources:
Texas Instruments PCM1792A*1 for Front-Out (127dB SNR, Max. 192kHz/24bit)
24-bit A-D Converter for Analog Inputs:
Cirrus-Logic CS5381* 1 (120dB SNR, Max. 192kHz/24bit)
High Fidelity Headphone Amplifier:
Texas Instruments 6120A2*1 (120dB SNR, 100dB THD+N @ Vcc±12V, RL=600Ω, f=1kHz)