DIY Sound Card?

[Samgotit]

Any Design it Yourselfers put any thought into this.

A sound card that is totally stripped down to deliver the "purest signal" to an outboard amp or dac.

I assume there would be a mess of problems doing this (PCBs, OS compatibility, driver software, etc).

Is what I'm asking more trouble than it's worth given pre-existing USB devices?

Thanks,
Sam

 

[Clutz]

Essentially what you're asking for is a USB DAC.

Lots of people have been talking about them here.

 

[Samgotit]

I guess I expected that.

So there are no benefits using a PCI slot over USB?

 

[Clutz]

Some possible advantages (as I see it, and I'm not an expert) are:

- extra noise (computers are electrically noisy environments)
- noisy power supplies (computer power supplies are generally not very good - this is why the first thing I do when trying to get a PC to run stable is replace the power supply (well, after doing all the software bits)).
- more limited powering options (you only get 5 and 12v)
- more fun writing drivers (they already exist for USB)