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Originally Posted by Albert Einstein /img/forum/go_quote.gif
So, external DAC to Audigy would be better than, lets say, HT Claro Plus without DAC?
Edit: Is DAC the same thing as AMP? I really am noob in this topic..
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A Digital to Analog Convertor (DAC) takes a digital music source (say, a CD or MP3/WAV file, which are basically data files of 1's and 0's), and converts it to an analog waveform signal so it can be output to your speaker/headphones.
You can't play a digital music file at all without having a DAC of some sort somewhere in your system (like a soundcard). And, since the human voice and most musical instruments are analog in nature, how close the resulting sound of a digital file gets to the original music depends in large part on how well your DAC converts that digitally-encoded file back into an approximation of the original analog signal.
An Amp, well, um, amplifies the signal.
In simplest terms it increased the peaks and valleys (amplitude) of an analog signal right before it gets sent to the speakers/headphones. The end result being an increase in clarity, details, soundstage, imaging, sound dynamics, and often overall volume of the music being played. Kinda like turning up the contrast and sharpness on a TV. You don't need to have an amp in your system, but not having one will result in a sound that is comparatively mushy, indistinct, congested, flat and dull.
All sounds cards have a DAC, although many newer cards have the ability to bypass the built-in DAC and pass the unconverted digital signal to an outside (presumably better) DAC to do the conversion. Many sounds cards also have amplification of some sort, although a few provide a line-out (unamplified) signal.
A card like the HT Claro+ has an excellent DAC (AKM4396) and a pretty good built-in amp as well (AD8620BR). IMO for you this would be a better solution than going from an Audigy2 -> external DAC, since the Audigy2 can't output a bit-perfect digital signal. The Audigy architecture will internally convert any digital signal to a sampling rate of 48KHz before sending it to the digital out. And it doesn't do the conversion very well, so a digital source like a cd (which has a 44.1KHz sampling rate - most mp3's use this rate as well) will sound slightly distorted when using its digital out, so much of the benefit of using an external DAC would be lost.
As to your OP, I think the Prelude is a great card, and IMO is most likely on par with a card like the claro+ (especially if you replace the LM4562 opamp on the Prelude with something else like an LT1361, which can be easily done with a steady hand and a $5 chip extractor or pair of needlenose pliers).
For $120 the Prelude would be a steal, and unless you can get an Asus Xonar HDAV/D2X/D2 (in that order) or a Claro+ for a similar price I'd say get the Prelude. It's a big step up from an Audigy 2 (For reference, I've owned all these cards but the claro+ and the Xonar D2X).
