Before I answer the sound quality issue, let focus on one major problem using the computer as source: noises. They come from the fans, the hard drives. Then there are noises from the PC power supply electrically. Now, if all you do is playing music thru computer style speakers as you sit right there controlling every tunes, it should be no prob! But if you plan on sending the signal to anything resembles HIFI, it won't cut it. Even my laptop is too noisy for this purpose. This is where the SBox comes in: It allows you to place the PC far away, like the basement and it has a great interactive screen and remote control that you control all your tunes with. Now on to the most important issue to audiophiles, how does it sound? It passes 44.1k PCM audio unaltered with no noise added, it has great on board DA, if you want to hook it up directly to amp (yes I tested it, I like it better than the output from my Sony DVP-S9000ES playing redbook CDs), and the conveniences of controlling my 10,000 songs in genres, groups, types with instant access, it is unbeatable value. My setup:
SB3>Musical Fidelity A3.24>Passive pot>2 Nakamichi PA-7s>B&W 802 Nautilus>One happy customer :^)))
