[kamaurul]

Anyone have any idea how it stacks up against the competition? Would it reach/exceed the AV-710/Audigy 2's standards? In ))Stereo(( mode, I mean.

Here's the new Shuttle: XPC ST20G5 (Athlon 64 Socket 939)
And here's what's driving its onboard audio (Azalia): ULi M1573 Southbridge

Here's an overview of a reference board with the ULi: ULi M1573 Reference Board

And here are reviews of the new Shuttle (not very informative on the audio part though):
Shuttle's XPC ST20G5 mini-barebones system (The Tech Report)
Shuttle A64 PCIe SFFs : ST20G5 & SN25P (Virtual Zone)

I'm a noob about all this, but I'm guessing a crucial piece of information that's missing is the type of codec used on its outputs. Right/wrong?

 

[Asmo]

Bad.

 

[kamaurul]

Drat

. Um, reason? Even in stereo?

 

[Hello]

Yes, even in stereo.

Most onboard sound cards resample 44 khz to 48 khz, which is not good.

Onboard sound on SFF is particularly problematic because there are so many components jammed into a small board; so, there is a lot of potential for noise to interfere with the sound production.

Lastly, onboard sound is generally an afterthought for the motherboard manufacturers. So, there really isn't much reason to expect it to be any good.

But, then good and bad are relative. For 25$, you can get the chaintech, which is almost surely better. (Of course, you'll have to use up a PCI slot).