[Nick Dangerous]

After upgrading my girlfriend's PC, I have an extra computer that will be incorporated into the Oris Project.

I subscribe to the Rhapsody internet streaming music service via listen.com. I plan to use the old PC to pipe it into my Art DI/O which feeds the Oris. The problem is, I am having a HORRIBLE time trying to find a PC card that will give me quality (i.e. not resampled) digital output via coaxial SP/DIF. Most cards only feature optical SP/DIF or resample the output.

So far, I've uncovered a few leads... Hoontech, ESI (Waveterminal), and Audiotrak among them:

http://www.digit-life.com/sound.html
http://www.sound-music.com/support.htm

I know many of you have also considered this route. Found anything good?

 

[Wodgy]

When you decide on a sound card, be sure to select the "Wave Output" device in Rhapsody's options dialog, and not "DirectSound". There's some controversy about whether DirectSound always resamples to 48kHz, regardless of what the incoming sampling rate is. I'm not sure if this is right or not, but why not be on the safe side anyway?

 

[grinch]

my terratec dmx 6fire card has coaxial out. i haven't ever messed with it though since my dac is on the bottom of a bunch of other sources in my shelf.

 

[wasifazim]

Quote:

Originally posted by Nick Dangerous After upgrading my girlfriend's PC, I have an extra computer that will be incorporated into the Oris Project. I subscribe to the Rhapsody internet streaming music service via listen.com. I plan to use the old PC to pipe it into my Art DI/O which feeds the Oris. The problem is, I am having a HORRIBLE time trying to find a PC card that will give me quality (i.e. not resampled) digital output via coaxial SP/DIF. Most cards only feature optical SP/DIF or resample the output. So far, I've uncovered a few leads... Hoontech, ESI (Waveterminal), and Audiotrak among them: http://www.digit-life.com/sound.html http://www.sound-music.com/support.htm I know many of you have also considered this route. Found anything good?

Grab an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 PCI off eBay, it's the card of choice for PC users who'd like something better than the usual SB Live! trash..

- Wasif.

 

[elrod-tom]

I've been pretty pleased with my Sound Blaster w/ Live Drive. I'm so pleased with it that I sold my Pioneer Elite CD-Recorder.

I am in the process of converting all my old albums to CD (shh...leave me alone all of you vinyl aficianados!!) with the aid of and MSB A/D converter, and I'm very happy with the quality of the finished product.

I'm also pleased with the ease of use...it has a front panel with coax in and coax out. The few times that I used the digital out, the quality was not lacking.

Very Good...4 cans on a 5 can scale.

 

[Chastity]

“Grab an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 PCI off eBay, it's the card of choice for PC users who'd like something better than the usual SB Live! trash..”

Yeah, if you also don’t know any better. The DMX 6Fire I believe is a better solution. Besides I prefer a breakout box to a ganglia of wires out the back.

 

[Calanctus]

Has Terratec fixed the terrible driver problems users were experiencing with the 6fire when it was released?

Users who REALLY know better might prefer a Lynx.

Edit:
Here are a few references:
PCAV Tech sound card comparison
Lynx 2 product info

 

[kelly]

Nick
Welcome to my world.

Here's a link to a writeup on the DMX 6Fire the previous poster mentioned:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/video/0...115/index.html

 

[wasifazim]

Quote:

Originally posted by Chastity “Grab an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 PCI off eBay, it's the card of choice for PC users who'd like something better than the usual SB Live! trash..” Yeah, if you also don’t know any better. The DMX 6Fire I believe is a better solution. Besides I prefer a breakout box to a ganglia of wires out the back.

*shrug* Not looking to get into fanboy arguments..just presenting an option.

- Wasif.

 

[rawhit]

Another vote for the DMX 6 Fire 2496. I have this card and i think it blows away my SBLive.
It has both optical and coax digital outputs and even the analog output is quite decent
The front module is nice to work with
And unlike audiophile 2496 it supports more gaming APIs (incase u care for games) like EAX, A3D etc.

cheers
RawHit

 

[Uosdwis R. Dewoh]

Nick -

A while back I found a VERY generic-looking soundcard in a computer store here in Sweden. It was called something like "3D Audio Super" and was based on a C-Media circuit. The price was around $15, and what made me interested was that it had a proper S/PDIF output that supported 24 bit wordlenghts (or so it said on the box). And hey - $15; I thought I'd try it out with a pair of Soundworks Digital speakers I then used for one of my computers.

The A/D and D/A are really terrible (I can hear the ocean!), but the S/PDIF works just fine. In fact, I'm using it for "jukeboxing" on my secondary system with my Art DI/O this very moment. Proper drivers were a bit hard to locate, but if you just want the output and don't want to pay for anything else I can gladly recommend it.

If you're interested, I could investigate further (send me a PM).

Cheers,
Uosdwis

 

[taoster]

does anyone know if any of those above mentioned card will work on OpenBSD? to be hooked to the ART DIO too..

 

[grinch]

Quote:

Originally posted by taoster does anyone know if any of those above mentioned card will work on OpenBSD? to be hooked to the ART DIO too..

hehe, i didn't think sound even worked on openbsd. why on earth would you want sound from a server (i hope) ?

nick: another option would be to find one of those usb boxes that have digital out and line out. that might be the easiest solution.

 

[Nick Dangerous]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. After an obsessive narrowing down of all of the available options, I have decided to go with the M-Audio Delta Dio 2496. It provides SP/DIF input/output via coax and Toslink. Direct analog output is also supported (although I won't be using it in this application).

Found it for $189 from digitalconnection.com.

 

[dr.orange]

Taoster your best bet is probably commercial OSS drivers. http://www.opensound.com
They have native OpenBSD drivers. The Audiophile and the 6fire are supported, though they're still working on getting all the connections on the 6fire's box to work (only midi is working).
The driver is $20 and you get 1 year tech support and 2 years of upgrades.