[Loque]

Hi all,

I am considering investing in a half decent sound card for my PC. At the moment I am running off an Onboard integrated motherboard Sound Setup. I can't say I feel a great deal of bad quality coming through the speakers but I rarely use it to be quite honest.

The system is using the SPDIF Optical output, going into a home theatre system and I get things in glorious 5.1

Is it worth me putting in a nice soundcard to use the system for listening to music, if so what do you guys recommend? And will I get an appreciable gain? Is there anything else I should know before embarking on such an activity?

 

[CodeToad]

If you're already getting a digital 5.1 stream through optical...congrats. That means you're pretty much running bit perfect and most likely adding a sound card will only screw that up with resampling/crappy drivers/etc.

Why not stick a nice DAC on usb and leave the 5.1 on optical. MisterX makes a nice usb Gamma1 that's way more than affordable and you'll have 2 channel music that blow the socks off any sound card.

 

[ford2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CodeToad /img/forum/go_quote.gif If you're already getting a digital 5.1 stream through optical...congrats. That means you're pretty much running bit perfect and most likely adding a sound card will only screw that up with resampling/crappy drivers/etc. Why not stick a nice DAC on usb and leave the 5.1 on optical. MisterX makes a nice usb Gamma1 that's way more than affordable and you'll have 2 channel music that blow the socks off any sound card.

Quote:::Off any sound card:::yawn.