[haveblue]

Currently my setup on my laptop is:

Philips PSC805 Aurilium
2 M-Audio BX5a monitors
Polk PSW202 subwoofer

I've been using the Aurilium for a while and don't even have the integrated sound driver installed. I've been wanting a better external sound card and want to spend around $200. Preferably it needs RCA outs and a separate center/woofer channel. It doesn't need to be powered since the monitors and woofer are amped.

These DACs that I see, do they require the installation of the integrated sound driver, or do they run just on USB? It seems that many of them are plug and play.

 

[obobskivich]

they use USB Streaming Audio, you won't ever touch the onboard, as its a different audio device being used for the USB solution, it is not a "USB DAC", its a USB -> S/PDIF device with an onboard serial audio D/A, and it is not "2.1 stereo" (as 2.1 stereo is about as ridiculous as USB DAC)

you'll need some sort of way to pass the full range betwixt the M-Audio and Polk sub, does the Polk offer line level stereo inputs and filtered outputs?

why not purchase a full fledged USB audio processor, which will give you more complete input/output abilities, a driver package to work with, and some other features? your budget supports it

 

[haveblue]

Thanks for the input. Can you recommend me some full fledged USB audio processors?

Edit: Ordered a fubar II. Thanks.

 

[obobskivich]

FUBAR II is a decent USB to S/PDIF to analog converter, very simple, and should do exactly what you're looking at doing

just ensure you have a way to connect the M-Audio sats to the Polk sub, as the FUBAR doesn't allow anything other than stereo output (even if you're just running splitters, you just need a way to get the signal to both, and the sub should have a highpass filter)