[nysulli]

just what the title says, after recabling my senn eh2270's and hearing the difference, i'm ready to get away from my nvidia soundforge onboard sound, which is around the level of the original audigy series

reason for the price range is that i'm awaiting a maxi moy signature from shellbrook, but if something happens and it falls through i'll be going with a pimeta most likely with opa627's

i'm also a little confused on the whole issue of using a usb based dac without a sound card, if thats possible, i'd be happy to go whatever route's going to get me the most bang for the buck, however i do game a bit, so the new x-fi is looking very tempting to wait for, but getting a dac in the mean time is definitly a possibility

 

[Mr.Sneis]

From what I understand using a USB DAC is a viable option however it is only 16-bit sound because that's the best that Microsoft USB drivers will allow (or is it the hardware?) which is comparable to cd-quality sound. In order to get the best quality sound it's better to use a "bit perfect" firewire based or optical out capable sound card which feeds into a DAC via optical, which then feeds into an amp. I'm guessing, listening to CD's via usb is pretty much the best sounding a CD can get. I'm probably wrong but I can't seem to find any end-all solutions to this madness

Someone who knows more than me will probably chime in!

 

[nysulli]

well my onboard sound does have a digital coax out, and the motherboard does have firewire, so basically i can work with about anything

 

[Glassman]

unless you can DIY, internal soundcard is the right choice considering your budget.. I've yet to see some decent digital output on mobo.. DIYers have clear advantage here of course, because they can incorporate USB audio controller worth a few bucks into their DAC design and save on soundcard.. however if you can't DIY your own DAC, you'd have to pay for something like M-Audio Sonica/Transit and it would eat half of your budget, with that I doubt you can find any good DAC.. really, for hundred bucks or two, you're definitely in the 'buy good internal soundcard' category here..

 

[labrat]

Deleted.

 

[Kurt]

I would buy a E-MU 0404. Good sound, very good price/performance ratio and a good optical out for later.
Save for a better DAC in the future.

 

[nysulli]

while the e-mu looks great, it seems to have a lot of recording features that i'll never use, i really just need a solid playback card

looking around, i saw the audiotrak prodigy, varius 9900 based m-audio cards, and the revolution series card, all of which i understand to be better then the audigy2 for music, however given my gaming, i think i'll holdout until the x-fi shows up and see how it performs