[chaseme]

I'm thinking about getting an EMU 0404 as an upgrade to my current AV-710. I want it for quality but at the same time I'm sick of the brutal VIA drivers I'm stuck with right now. I want you'ze guys opinion on if this is the right card for me based on my setup and needs. I have an HTPC optical out to my stereo reciever which drives my 5.1 setup. I'm most interested in stereo music use via ASIO or KS, but wouldn't mind passing DD and DTS streams on to PowerDVD via the toslink if the card will do it. I'm not great at this stuff so I don't even know if the card can affect this being sent or not. I have a tv tuner in the unit which has analog out via headphone jack on the backplate, and internal on-pcb connectors. It's not critical that the TV tuner stay in this system though, I might stick it in another PC and share the content.

So EMU 0404 going to work for me?!

 

[Radea]

You'll have a problem with the S/PDIF passthrough, it doesn't work as far as I know. If anyone got it to work, let me know as well!

It is a good card for everything else, though. You could always try to setup PowerDVD to just use the S/PDIF passthrough with your onboard sound, assuming you have onboard sound with S/PDIF.

 

[Bones13]

I would think most folks get the 0404 and better boards for the DAC on board and pass the analog on to their amps>cans. Most the folks using an external DAC (or DTS signal processor like in your receiver) are using the optical/coaxial SPDIF from the chaintech, or soundblaster cards.

Using your system as is, the sound card is not contributing much to the sound, just offloading it to your reciever/surround system.

You might try searching these forums for the excellent AV710 set up guides, and have even seen hint of a mod involving reflashing the board to be just SPDIF out and bypassing more of the circuitry, but then I did not research that much.

 

[chaseme]

Thanks for the info. I didn't think of it that way (my reciever is the DAC) and it makes sense. I will check for the guides you mentioned since the last time I tried ASIO with the AV-710 it was a disaster. I'll put the $ towards rear speakers instead!