Does this product even exist???

thx for the last response. This is what I was looking for.

THIS IS GOING TO BE GOOD NEWS FOR ALL OF US...

Creative will be releasing a new sound card. The Audigy 2 Platinum EX. Note the EX part. Basically they are getting rid of the internal drive bay connections and using an outboard pice to connect to the sound card in your computer. Similiar to the Extigy.

I am thinking this will be nice. I assume their reasoning is to eliminate a majority of the computers EMI and fan noise.

They claim to have a long digital bus cable that will run from the back of the sound card to your external box which you can place next to your sound system.

I would reccomend checking it out. I have already placed an order for one when they ship and will post a review of it in detail after many hours of listening.

Good luck,
-H

The problem I have with all of Creative's products is AC97 compliance - which forces upsampling of 44.1 KHz content to 48 KHz on the SPDIF output. If all you want to do is use the digital output with an external DAC, grab the M-Audio Audiophile 2496 (which does NOT upsample) ofr circa $100.00 or if you want to really go high-end ($400 USD+), go for the RME 2496PAD which offers AES/EBU as well via an add-on cable.

As for a cheap (and silent) computer, the Hush is good, but you can also put together a similar (silent) mini-ITX system for less - albeit without the slick looking case Hush offers. Check out www.mini-itx.com for more information on these cool fanless VIA boards.

"High quality MP3s"??? Now there's an oxymoron if I ever heard one. MP3 only has one tenth the music information as on a redbook CD.