Onkyo SE-150PCI PC Digital Audio Board - £110.44 http://www.audiocubes.com/product_info.php?currency=GBP&products_id=1101
Eltax Monitor 3's? If so I own them, veery nice bassy speakers for the money, best budgetish speakers I could find, mmmm By the Cambridge Audio - im guessing your a Richersounds man, btw theres no point spending £200 on a soundcard to put through a £80-100 amp at all really, as your going to be loosing the audiophile quality given from a +£100 soundcard via the amp,and to be honest the speakers aswell, best looking at the £70 M-audio card, its v.good value for money, nice card, and you aint gonna notice the difference between it and the £200 one apart from in your wallet... - M@
If your budget can stretch to £200, then for music your best bet would be a decent soundcard such as an M-Audio revolution (~£70) and an external DAC (such as the M-Audio superdac, Cambridge DACMagic or various other offerings from hifi manufacturers). Hook the sound card up to the DAC via an optical lead (preferable to co-axial as a PC is full of RF interference which you don't want getting into your hifi via an electrical link), then the DAC to the hifi with some RCA leads. For music playback this is pretty much the optimum method
I don't think it's even necessary to get a card as nice as the revo for an optical output. The USD $25 Chaintech AV-710 is a popular budget card, and it has third party drivers that are supposed to give it a good optical out.
I wanna get a decent sound card because i might be inheriting a kick ass system from my grandpa soon, + ya am a richersounds man, ive had this system for like 6 years and it hasnt failed me yet, + yes i think your right about the speakers. Rowan
Getting the DAC out of the PC is a case where an offboard DAC has a big advantage - the interference within a PC has a big effect on the sound (a PC is a darned noisy electrical environment, with switch mode power supplies, loads of different clocks) so taking the analougue stage out of the PC is a big help/ Plus with a DAC you can run other things through it as well as the PC - cd player, freeview box, DVD player (when set to output PCM), you're just limited by inputs.
dacs did kind of die in the mid to late nineties for that very reason. But they are having a bit of a rebirth at the moment in "the community" with people often using them coupled with a universal dvd player as a transport.
yeah i was being ironic but yeah only place i could see a dac being worthwhile is a pc, or a cheap cruddy dvd/cd player. even the best cd players now adays have dac onboard, but all mains related components outside.
