sound cards and PC audio quality

[hendinas]

Hey folks,

Im new to the audiophile scene, and this forum, so if I say something silly forgive me.

Yesterday I went down to the local audio shop and had a listen to a set of B&W 603 tower speakers running off a NAD 2ch amp. I was absolutley blown away by the clarity and general awesomeness of the sound so Ive decided I want a set.

my main purpose is listening to music (pretty much all genere's, from Pink floyd to Rage against the machine to R&B and Hip Hop!) and Id like to use my PC as the source. So im wondering if its possible to get that "wow factor" that I experienced in the store (it was probably a high end CD player as well) from my PC, and whats the best sound card to get? would the quality be comparable?

thanks for reading.
Lachlan

 

[hendinas]

ok, so ive learnt about the wonderfull world of USB DAC's!. sounds like a decent one of these would kick the *** of whatever CD player the salesman was using. Am i correct in thinking this?

sounds like the Trends Audio UD-10.1 will do the job nicely.
(cant post a link as i need a post count of 5 )

any thoughts?

 

[tbewick]

Hi

A good quality sound card (~$100+) will probably have the equivalent performance of a low- to mid-priced CD player (~$150 - $500). I wasn't able to find much information on the DAC (the Trends Audio UD-10.1 external DAC) you mentioned.

Creative's previous Audigy sound cards have received favourable reviews, so their current range might be worth looking at:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1154159,00.asp
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1382725,00.asp

I've got an EMU-0404 card myself:

http://www.emu.com/products/welcome.asp?category=505

The recording sound quality is very poor, but I think this may be due to a software problem or something.