Best audio card with digital output

[MikeSp]

Mike, thx for joining us, but please read the previous replies from me and others.
For music also you don't need to go hmdi and you already were offered few good solutions.
It's still not clear to me are using desktop pc or it's a laptop.

p.s: Please disregard my recent convo with caper26 - it's specific to his turtle beach sound adapter.

Desktop computer -- plan to rebuild my current desktop tower and use its Asus P5Q3 Deluxe mobo and Quad core CPU as the basis for a media desktop computer with some sort of A/V-looking case. I did read through most of the preceeding thread postings and I thought that many were oriented toward the use of a DAC or analog outputs from a media PC sound card or sound device if external to the PC. I don't recall seeing anything about reclocking and jitter or comparing the digital output of lossless WAV or FLAC files from a good audio card using Toslink or coax (NO external DAC) to that of a CD transport fed into a dedicated DAC and then into an analog preamp.

Thanks,

MikeSp

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Desktop computer -- plan to rebuild my current desktop tower and use its Asus P5Q3 Deluxe mobo and Quad core CPU as the basis for a media desktop computer with some sort of A/V-looking case. I did read through most of the preceeding thread postings and I thought that many were oriented toward the use of a DAC or analog outputs from a media PC sound card or sound device if external to the PC. I don't recall seeing anything about reclocking and jitter or comparing the digital output of lossless WAV or FLAC files from a good audio card using Toslink or coax (NO external DAC) to that of a CD transport fed into a dedicated DAC and then into an analog preamp.

Thanks,

MikeSp

Mike, I think I starting to get to where you are heading to...
Since you have excellent MX150 Pre-Pro which includes top-of-the-line DAC built-in I see absolutely ZERO sense of paying money to reproduce same capacity in such none audio friendly device such as desktop pc, it's possible thou, but it'll cost you. Why - I don't know.

As per re-clocking the digital signal? I assume you are referring to sample rate or frequency conversion ? As in you have high sample/frequency file which your Pre-Pro's DAC unable to handle and you need real-time conversion??

What I would get if I planned to use existing pre-pro for DAC :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132013
This card won't dent your pocket much and using it's spdif out will provide highest level of quality thru pure digital output

If you really want to go crazy, there plenty of options as well:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271005
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132019
or even
http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/dac/dac1-hdr

But lets be honest - none of these will improve your sound quality.

 

[MikeSp]

Mike, I think I starting to get to where you are heading to...
Since you have excellent MX150 Pre-Pro which includes top-of-the-line DAC built-in I see absolutely ZERO sense of paying money to reproduce same capacity in such none audio friendly device such as desktop pc, it's possible thou, but it'll cost you. Why - I don't know.

As per re-clocking the digital signal? I assume you are referring to sample rate or frequency conversion ? As in you have high sample/frequency file which your Pre-Pro's DAC unable to handle and you need real-time conversion??

What I would get if I planned to use existing pre-pro for DAC :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132013
This card won't dent your pocket much and using it's spdif out will provide highest level of quality thru pure digital output

The following two appear to be oustanding and should do what I want to accomplish:
If you really want to go crazy, there plenty of options as well:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829271005
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132019

This is a DAC solution and that probably would be duplicated effortr even
http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/dac/dac1-hdr

But lets be honest - none of these will improve your sound quality.

BUT -- I would prefer to store all of my music files in a media server for convenience and perhaps use iRiver or other quality software and then feed those into my pre-pro via coax or Toslink. McIntosh is mostly about analog and love to sell expensive analog solutions whereas I prefer to stay in the digital domain until the last second.

Thanks for your thoughts -- I value them very much.
MikeSp

 

[Theresa]

Asus Xonar and ATI HDMI

I use a Asus Xonar Essence STX for mostly headphones but it has a optical and coaxial SPDIF out and sometimes use that for music, including 96/24. I also have a ATI/AMD 6850 whose HDMI carries most of the audio for me, from DVD-Audio, flac, and of course HD video.

 

[Todesengel]

I have been a Creative fan from birth. They had gotten out of the dedicated audio card game a little since the inclusion of pretty good mobo solutions. However, they recently made a come back with this:

http://us.store.creative.com/PCI-Express-Sound-Blaster-XFi-Titanium/M/B0018EFGTM.htm

Its been getting pretty favorable reviews however, I don't like the fact that it doesn't support the new HD audio codecs