Opinions needed for SPDIF out for stereo/HT

[radio]

Hiya,

I have spent the better evening till night reading forums here researching about soundcards and spdif and emu and maudio and esi and others.

I currently have a PC that i have ripped my cds using eac and lame and also use the transport on the computer for blueray and dvds which i have connected via DVI-D.

I am using a creative labs audigy 2 zs. I use the digital spdif pass through and let my arcam gear do the DAC processing.

My initial question before i found this site was should i upgrade the soundcard solely for the purpose for increasing sound quality. BUT i thought if i use spdif passthrough soundquality shouldnt be effected as it is in the digital domain until my arcam does the dac processing?

I just read one of hte last threads in this subforum about how someone upgraded from audigy 2zs to esi juli for coaxial spdif and thier sound increased.

Is this true the digital spdif coaxial sound quality is effected by the soundcard?

If so i was initially leaning towards the m audio 192 but after reading so many reviews i am more confused i have 3 contenders and im dead in water here any opitnions would be welcomed.

- m audio 192
- emu 1212 pci
- RME of some sort

any other thoughts from users who have used all these... my goal is to send sound as discoloured and neutral as possible to the processor so the only sound effects are based on my amplifier and speakers.

thanx

 

[Icarium]

Good question, I've heard positive things about the RME cards but nothing in detail.

 

[smeggy]

Many consumer cards resample to 48khz internally (including Audigys from what I've heard) in which case the spdif is outputting a (theoretically) non bit-perfect signal to the DAC. If your card can output 16-24bit and 44100khz then you just need a driver that doesn't screw with it and preferably Kernel streaming or ASIO plugins so Windows doesn't screw with it.

The process sounds like hell and it is, fortunately it's not necessarily expensive as there are cheap cards under $40 that can do all the above and will sound as good as anything else out there as it's only a case of getting a bit-perfect signal out to the DAC.

Diamond extremesound 7.1 is $35 cmedia open source drivers allow bit perfect coax spdif with Kernel streaming 16-24bit, 44100 - 96000khz
http://cmediadrivers.googlepages.com/
No use for games though if you use these drivers as it back-ends the normal operation to enable the audiophile features.

 

[radio]

Thanks for the pointer smeggy.

Do you think though spdif outputs differ in sound quality or your meant they all resample to 48 so there are artifacts or sound bias introduced in sound from spdif?

If said soundcard was used vs like an emu1212 or maudio audiophile 192 do you think the sound would change through spdif?

Balanced output from maudio looks great for processor and or amp hookup.

any other thoughts?

 

[Joshatdot]

I would recommend AV710 & Prodigy Flash, but it has Optical SPDIF.

 

[lini]

radio: For digital surround sound (Dolby Digital, DTS) via SPDIF, changing your card will make no difference - however it will for PCM stereo via SPDIF, 'cause your Audigy is indeed on of the soundcard models that can't output 44.1-kHz-material without resampling, and unfortunately the resampling quality of the SB-Life!- and -Audigy-series isn't very good.

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

P.S.: I'd suggest to look into the Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 HiFI - that's a nice, hifi-oriented, Envy24-based card with a pretty fair price.

 

[radio]

thanks guys.

I looked at prices on cards and they are all extremely expensive here in canada as they are all through pro audio stores.. the only one i can get around 150 is M Audio Audiophile 192.

does it do bitperfect... and owners of it how is the spdif PCM quality of it?

htanx

 

[radio]

P.S I have added the ESI Juli@ to my shortlist as its about 200 cdn dollars here.

 

[Zodduska]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joshatdot /img/forum/go_quote.gif I would recommend AV710 & Prodigy Flash, but it has Optical SPDIF.

I second this. Great solution if all you need is bit perfect optical SPDIF and only $20, take note though flashing to Prodigy disables all of the analog outputs.

 

[Illah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joshatdot /img/forum/go_quote.gif I would recommend AV710 & Prodigy Flash, but it has Optical SPDIF.

I third this solution. I have an AV710 I haven't used in ages and I'm keeping it around for a future HTPC build for this very purpose. It's been confirmed to do bit-perfect streaming.

Also optical is better from computer sources because it completely separates the noisy PC from the audio equipment by breaking any electrical connection between the two (coax maintains an electrical connection). Is it noticeable? Maybe, maybe not...but when the two are equally good why take the chance?

~$25 USD for the AV710. It remains one of my favorite computer related purchases of all time!

--Illah

 

[slwiser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by radio /img/forum/go_quote.gif P.S I have added the ESI Juli@ to my shortlist as its about 200 cdn dollars here.

Great card for digital output to a out-board DAC like my Lavry or a Benchmark. You can't do much better than the Juli@ even with the much higher end Lynx cards for digital signals. Juli@ digital is the equal to a lynx card. Analog is a totally different issue with the Juli@. I had this card in a full size computer and it was great until my computer died on me and I sold that card. I am now using USB to the M-Audio for my SPDIF input into my Lavry as can be seen in my sig. I am about to take delivery on a Oppo Universal player which I will also feed using SPDIF into my Lavry for PDM streaming any of the formats it plays.

 

[radio]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slwiser /img/forum/go_quote.gif Great card for digital output to a out-board DAC like my Lavry or a Benchmark. You can't do much better than the Juli@ even with the much higher end Lynx cards for digital signals. Juli@ digital is the equal to a lynx card. Analog is a totally different issue with the Juli@. I had this card in a full size computer and it was great until my computer died on me and I sold that card. I am now using USB to the M-Audio for my SPDIF input into my Lavry as can be seen in my sig. I am about to take delivery on a Oppo Universal player which I will also feed using SPDIF into my Lavry for PDM streaming any of the formats it plays.

Hiya,

Thanks for the encouraging suggestion... question(s):

- Have you compared the dac processing onboard vs your outboard dac?
- Does the soundcard have Balanced XLR outs?

I think either way eihter i go for chaintek (thanks guys for 3 thumbsup on teh card) or the juli i may have to go to a outboard dac and further increase the quality of sound... THAT is IF the juli does not process the sound as good as the outboard dacs i have a suspicious it doenst but i want your opinion in terms of percentage of diff between the two?

THe prospect of optical vs coaxial you guys have made a good comment that the optical is not prone to same type of intereference that coaxial may be. At the same time i am not sure if it does effect it as much as its digital so the sound i.e digital signal cannot effect the quality of sound from interference from coax? maybe im wrong?

 

[slwiser]

Quote:

Originally Posted by radio /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hiya, Thanks for the encouraging suggestion... question(s): - Have you compared the dac processing onboard vs your outboard dac? - Does the soundcard have Balanced XLR outs? I think either way eihter i go for chaintek (thanks guys for 3 thumbsup on teh card) or the juli i may have to go to a outboard dac and further increase the quality of sound... THAT is IF the juli does not process the sound as good as the outboard dacs i have a suspicious it doenst but i want your opinion in terms of percentage of diff between the two? THe prospect of optical vs coaxial you guys have made a good comment that the optical is not prone to same type of intereference that coaxial may be. At the same time i am not sure if it does effect it as much as its digital so the sound i.e digital signal cannot effect the quality of sound from interference from coax? maybe im wrong?

I think I said that the analog is not at the same level as the digital out. As a matter of fact if I remember the analog outs are actually not to be used as headphone outs. I always used it the digital out as an input into my out-board Lavry DA10.

Balanced outs? They do RCA (1/4 inch plugs) if you reverse the daughter card and the RCAs can be used as balanced outs. I did not use it this way so I can't talk about how it sounded.

 

[D0gbert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by radio /img/forum/go_quote.gif - Have you compared the dac processing onboard vs your outboard dac?

considering that the onboard DAC is driven by a noisy PC power supply and that there is a lot of loss induced by the jacks and maybe even the cables, routing the sound signal digitally to an external DAC is almost always the better choice with regard to the sound quality.

With my driver, a cheap cmedia card with digital ports will do the job better than most professional cards available today for rougly a tenth of the price.

just my two cents...

 

[radio]

I took advice on whole lot and days days of zombie reading and staying up till early hours of night/morning.

I have just gotten the chaintech and flashed it to prodigy struggling to get bitperfect... next i am going to throw in a VDA2 to the chain.