Sound cards might reduce electrical noise, that can convert to time jitter of digital signal (especially with slow Toslink transitions). This jitter appears as added noise (loss of clarity). On the other hand Stereophile measurements of V90 show very good jitter rejection. V90 also has asynchronous USB, that might provide better results (2-wire, no power USB cable). Both, Toslink and USB are limited to 96kHz. Again Stereophile measurements showed similar very low jitter with both methods. If you're really happy with the sound, the leave it alone and enjoy. One possible area of improvement is clean power supply. My Airport Express, DAC and Power Amp are all plugged into Furman Elite-20 PFI conditioner with very good noise filtering.
Motherboard SDIF Output Or Soundcard
Hey everyone, I'm using my computer as a source of music. I'm really happy with the sound. Just wondering if it will be worth it to buy a higher end sound card. What do you guys think?
Rig: Running an Asus X99 Pro Motherboard. Using a 6 meter long Audioquest toslink cable from motherboard to Musical Fidelity V90 DAC, to Parasound JC2 Preamp, to a Parasound A21 amp, and finally, to Von Schweikert V4.5 speakers.
Rig: Running an Asus X99 Pro Motherboard. Using a 6 meter long Audioquest toslink cable from motherboard to Musical Fidelity V90 DAC, to Parasound JC2 Preamp, to a Parasound A21 amp, and finally, to Von Schweikert V4.5 speakers.