[tublecane]

Man I am new and am so hoping I don't get blasted for this if it was asked before, but I tried searching quick but didn't find anything to quick and I'm at work so don't have all day to look.

Anyway I got here through a link looking for sound cards, and I haven't seen a forum where people seem to be so knowledgable about this stuff, so I'm going to ask my question and if it is in the wrong forum or been asked already I guess move it or whatever and sorry.

I am looking for the best sound card and setup for listening to mp3's sent to a reciever. I have a fairly old computer but it runs decent, and I have mostly downloaded mp3's so not the quality of whatever you guys choose to rip at I'm sure. I just want good quality sound, no hiss etc. right now I have a sound blaster pci 512 hooked up through RCA cables to a Marantz 5200. It has digital out but I've tried to do this to my AVI card that has co-ax digital and could never get dvd or any other digital signal to my reciever. If I get the AV-710 and hook up with optical, will this give me good sound for regular MP3's if I follow the basic set-up and mods found here? Would it really be that much of an improvement since I'm only playing most likely low quality mp3's? What is the best software to use while listening...i currently use wimamp and like the playlist etc and some of the plugin animations as i send them to my tv and it is good for parties etc.

Thanks

 

[sugarkang]

your goals are substantially.... different from most of the people on this community. but i think that the long answer to your question is going to be "yes"
the chaintech, at $24, is a fantastic buy, but i doubt that you will even notice a difference. as far as hiss is concerned... if your original recording has hiss, a new sound card is not going to take that away.

also, don't knock mp3s.
http://www.geocities.com/altbinaries...l/mp3test.html

if the best ears in the world can't tell the difference, it's unlikely that you will either.

 

[bg4533]

The Chaintech should work well for you. I cannot comment on the digital out of this card, but I use the analog out in a similar setting.

For the past few years I have used a Soundblaster 512 hooked to an old Denon AVR1201 (or some model like that) connected by a high end Monster mini-RCA cable. The also uses some fairly old Sears house brand speakers. Static has always been an issue. With the 512 there was noticable static in everything at about 20% volume of the receiver and it got worse as it went up. With the AV710 I detect no static until about 60% receiver volume with the source muted and I never detect any static while listening to anything.

Overall, even with my somewhat crappy system, there was an increase in sound quality. I don't really know the proper terms to describe the differences, but everything seemed a little more realistic. I think with better speakers the differences would be ever more pronounced.

For around $25 I don't think you can go wrong either way.