Thanks for your response stillhart. You mentioned you originally wanted a DAC with an optical port. Is going through the headphone port on your sound card, or optical to a DAC to your headphones going to give you a better surround sound experience?
I go from the optical out of my Sound Blaster Omni to the DAC/Amp combo. This is a significantly improved sound (for music) over just the Sound Blaster and still allows for virtual surround. For gaming, you will never notice the difference.