[berryjuice]

I'm currently on the market for cheap soundcard with optical out that will be mainly used as a pass through for my DAC? Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no difference in sound quality between a high end sound card and low/cheap one if I will be using the optical out of the sound card to the optical in of my DAC right?

About the soundcards, I really don't know if these cards support optical out on their digital out port. I've already searched the net and there seems to be not much of a discussion about these cards using optical out so I'm hesitant to buy them.
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Will I still achieve bit perfect data from these cards? If these cards doesn't support optical out, could you recommend a cheap pci sound card that has optical out, probably a Creative since they are more locally available here in the Philippines.

Thanks guys.

 

[johnwmclean]

Optical output is raw binary data, which has nothing to do with SQ. Optical output should have consistent bit to bit data from one device to another be it a soundcard or your pc. The external dac will be the decider in terms of sound quality as well as the original sampling rate.

 

[berryjuice]

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnwmclean /img/forum/go_quote.gif Optical output is raw binary data, which has nothing to do with SQ. Optical output should have consistent bit to bit data from one device to another be it a soundcard or your pc. The external dac will be the decider in terms of sound quality as well as the original sampling rate.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, you're right. So that just implies that there is no difference between a low end card and a high end one if I'll just use their optical out connected to a DAC which will do the processing right? That's why I'm looking for a very cheap pci sound card that has optical output for pass-through sound data only. It will be greatly appreciated if you can recommend very cheap one and preferably a Creative.

 

[Omega17TheTrue]

Don't you have a RCA digital output behind your computer ? But your DAC is optical only, right ?

 

[berryjuice]

My computer does not have the RCA digital output. My DAC can accept USB, Coax, and Optical (iBasso D10). I will also be needing the optical out to feed a receiver which only accepts an optical or coax.

 

[Bredin]

For bit-perfect output you will need:
Kernel Streamer for XP
WASAPI for Vista/7
ASIO Works on all windows, but requires a card that support ASIO

 

[johnwmclean]

Quote:

Originally Posted by berryjuice /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thanks for the reply. Yes, you're right. So that just implies that there is no difference between a low end card and a high end one if I'll just use their optical out connected to a DAC which will do the processing right? That's why I'm looking for a very cheap pci sound card that has optical output for pass-through sound data only. It will be greatly appreciated if you can recommend very cheap one and preferably a Creative.

There should be no difference between a high end or low end card if one only needs optical output - the device simply passes on the raw digital into its S/PDIF port to the connected DAC.

Bit perfect is hotly debated whether there is SQ differences, IMO errors would be inaudible in the real world.

 

[iriverdude]

Then how do people hear differences between £50 DVD digital out to a £5000 CD transport when playing CD's?

 

[johnwmclean]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iriverdude /img/forum/go_quote.gif Then how do people hear differences between £50 DVD digital out to a £5000 CD transport when playing CD's?

Good question, how do they?

 

[EugeneK]

Creative doesn't allow bitperfect output. At least the two I had could not anyway.

I had an Audigy 2ZS pro and a Xfi gamer. They both have mandatory upsampling to 48 khz for the onboard DSP. There's no way to lock it at 44.1 khz for CD audio.

I had to get a $40 Cmedia based soundcard.

 

[Bredin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iriverdude /img/forum/go_quote.gif Then how do people hear differences between £50 DVD digital out to a £5000 CD transport when playing CD's?

And the type of cable (coax or toslink), type of connector (rca or xlr) or the quality of the cable