Soundcard with absolute best SPDIF quality?

[Alienns]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HiPerFreak /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi everyone, what soundcard offers the best possible signal quality on its SPDIF output one can buy for money today? I want to drive a high end dolby surround preamp with both stero and AC3 material and I want to get the absolute best quality that is possible out of my PC. I would be glad to hear your recommendations! - Daniel

Actually i have Pentium 1 on 133 Mhz and inside some ISA Crapiest souding soundcard in the world you can ever found with CMI chipset who have 2 pair of pins on board for SPDIF IN and OUT and when i connect that to my SPDIF preamplifier > than into my ONKYO Integrated amplifier in PURE direct than i have PERFECT sound as you can have.

I hope so this will help you to understand what is SPDIF quality.

Simply: You sound quality through SPDIF not depend on your PC and soundcard in it.

 

[linuxworks]

CMI chipset has always been good and tustable.

you have an isa card? still? wow

I remember when isa sound cards that had bit perfect spdif were in the several hundred dollar range and were stuffed with chips (custom ones).

anyone ever used or heard of the old 'zefiro' card? that was popular with the DAT taping and digital audio capture crowd. it was also an isa bus card.

 

[Alienns]

In that time (`96) i was used spdif from that CMI isa card to Sony DAT DT-55ES or something and WOW that beat every cd player under 900-1000$ just like that.

Still have Gravis Ultrasound PnP ISA too with 8 + 0.5 MB RAM Memory

That was best soundcard for that time and still can beat many integrated soundcards like ac`97 in sound quality especially in recording from Line IN.

first soundcard who beat Gravis is Sounblaster Live! as commercial Soundcard.

 

[linuxworks]

oh man, GUS MAX was an ancient memory. long long isa card. funny to think of such a thing.

but in the 1990's it was a 'good card' for its day.

cardD-digital was another that imported spdif.

zefiro ZA2 was the isa card I was thinking of. even the website is now gone (but archive.org has copies)

 

[mudkip]

motherboard spdif is fine since the dac/preamp will be doing the decoding.

 

[bordins]

I just got my Lynx AES16e adapter. It sounds a lot better than all sound cards I've owned. The music is more balanced, detailed and extended. The adapter makes my PC transport as good as $$$ traditional CD transport.

The AES16e makes my ESI Juli@ card, as well as my other audio interfaces, sound "muddy", . But the Juli@ still sounds very good unless you've heard the Lynx.

However, the outputs are only in AES/EBU. You need a AES-2-SPDIF converter if your DAC can accept only the S/PDIF. If you want to build yours, take a look at the Lynx Support Forum.

Using my 16-foot DIY AES/EBU extension cable (Belden 1800B), the waveform is still perfect. The sonic is very well balanced and detailed.

I'm very happy with my decision getting the Lynx adapter.

 

[tosehee]

I don't know, but I seem to believe that I hear differences between DTS/AC-3/DTS-MA/TrueHD. Maybe a placebo, but when I switch codecs in movies, I do seem to hear the differences. In that regard, I prefer TrueHD/DTS-MA over DTS/AC3 whether my system exceeds the limit of dts/ac3 or not.

 

[tosehee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mudkip /img/forum/go_quote.gif motherboard spdif is fine since the dac/preamp will be doing the decoding.

How do I get a bit perfect output from the motherboard SPDIF? Mine MB is Asus P5E-VM HDMI, and it has coax output. But, I can't seem to find any driver that would let me output the sounds in bit perfect manner through KS or WASAPI.

 

[iriverdude]

If that doesn't work try ASIO4ALL. Playback a DTS encoded flac file with replaygain disabled, plugged into a av amp. If DTS lights up on your amp, then it's bit perfect. Like the iriver H140/DTS/Lexicon picture, proves it's bit perfect.

 

[MikeW]

how did this thread get so de-railed. Im interested in low jitter high quality SPDIF output as well. Im on a budget, and have NOS dac that supposed to respond very well to lower jitter. Im using x-fi digital out now with flexijack. Wonder if 0404pci or asus or juli@ would be a worthwhile upgrade, I see no reason to go further then 0404pci the EMU line, as they all share the same transformer coupled spdif out, the upgrades in 1212m line are other parts of the card, not related to the spdif output. People always say go USB and get out of that noisy emi filled computer case, but im not 100% convinced. I have a high quality power supply in my PC that is rated very well for DC ripple and and DC quality, hooked up to a power conditioner. Im not so sure these USB SPDIF converters (there's a good half dozen, you pick it) are better. You might get out of the computer case, but you still got USB>>> JITTER> CONVERTER >> JITTER >> DAC, not to mention most of these converters are powered off the USB power, how is that any cleaner then the PCI power in your computer. Seems to me you'd be better off with a high quality sound card's SPDIF straight to the dac to avoid all this usb to converter to dac crap. But maybe im wrong, that's why im posting..

 

[tosehee]

think you are wrong.

there are three good usb converter that I know with very low jitter.

musiland, bel canto usb, diverter (in the order of price)

 

[tosehee]

н¨ÍøÒ³ 1

This is not an onboard SC, but you can connect to your existing optical out to it.

 

[MikeW]

Hi toeshee, I read the entire thread on the musiland, not a single person compared it to a quality PCI sound cards spdif output. not one. If I could be guaranteed it would be better output then a 0404 and my current x-fi i'd jump all over it. But it cost the same as an 0404 PCI. I know fallenangel has made several comments on how nice the 0404's spdif is, maybe he can comment. I have compared my X-fi flexijack output to my Realtek ALC1200 optical and Coax digital output, with bit-perfect playback though foobar and ASIO/WASAPI. I was hoping it would be better then the X-fi because the motherboard at least uses the proper cables, unlike the xfi's 3.5mm to coax connection. But alas, the X-fi was still better. However, I can't seem to get my computer to sound as good as my OPPO 980H DVD player (Used as a Digital transport to the same dac/amp) no matter what I do.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeW /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi toeshee, I read the entire thread on the musiland, not a single person compared it to a quality PCI sound cards spdif output. not one. If I could be guaranteed it would be better output then a 0404 and my current x-fi i'd jump all over it. But it cost the same as an 0404 PCI. I know fallenangel has made several comments on how nice the 0404's spdif is, maybe he can comment.

Sure you read it all?
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/5987573-post276.html

 

[MikeW]

I did miss that one andrew, thank you. Though the post is not exactly inspiring for this device. he compares it to the much more expensive 02 model, and by the sounds of it, the asus clearly beats the 01 model. The asus card is almost the same price as the 02 as well. I still wonder if the 0404 may have even better SPDIF output then the asus, although the the asus is overall likely a better card (much better analog output, and amped headphone output) but when comparing only SPDIF I'm not sure. That shed's a little bit of light on this, but we need more comparisons of these to PCI sound cards, I don't understand some of these people posting that use PC's (not laptops) as transports and they are so thrilled about this device, like they have been waiting for something like this for a long time, as if their was no other (long available) source to get SPDIF out of a desktop computer.