Best soundcard if have outboard DAC

When feeding to an external DAC, the sound card only needs to be bit perfect. The DAC does not care about brand names if the output is SPDIF 44.1khz. Redbook standard!!

You can use the Cmedia 8738 based sound card to output the 44.1 signal to the DAC. About 10.00 dollars at the store.

You need to bypass the Kmixer in a windows based OS. Kmixer upsamples to 48khz, this is a no-no. It does not matter that you use onboard sound or any other device as long as the output is bit perfect. Hence the $10.00 dollar Cmedia solution will output a 44.1khz bit perfect signal to the DAC.

This has been researched extensively by others and myself. I am runing Foobar2K with bit perfect output to my Music Fidelity Tri-Vista 21 DAC. Hope thhis explains it clearly and to the point.

I am using a toslink connection due to the distance to the DAC. About 20ft. The PC outputs to the overhead projector and hence the distance involved. There is no signal loss or interference with this setup. Sounds great to me. I am using the PC as a HTPC front end / data Base. Here are the components.

KT 800 AMD PC - WinXP Pro
Electrohome 8500 CRT Projector Via PC output
Music Fidelity Tri Vista 21 DAC
Bryston BP 25 Pre Amp
Infinity Crossover
4 Bryston 7BST monobock amps
Infinity RS1B speakers.

Try both connections to the outboard reciever and let your ears determine what sounds best to you! It still does not matter what you use to feed the bits to the DAC. USB or sound card will not matter in the digital realm with 44.1khz output. Most Creative cards will not output 44.1 SPDIF. The Burr Brown DAC is a excellent D/A converter. Bits is Bits no matter what you use. The DAC is where the sound quality comes into play.

Kernel Streaming or ASIO works without Kmixer.