[BillyM]

A/B is what I use to referr to side-by-side comparisons.

Here is my take on it.

A.) Cost, Xitel Pro is a good deal cheaper.  As far as external vs USB bus, I dont think power clarity much matters when its all digital.  Your laptop's powersupply is good enough for a computer which runs pure digital and does it flawlessly every day, I transfer gigs of data back and forth to my USB stick, and it runs off the bus power and transfers MUCH faster.  I think the power will be clean enough to transfer 1's and 0's from one cable to the next.  This is just how it makes sense to me...

B.) Your reciever has a darn good DAC internal, plus it will remove all external analog wires.  Every time you add an external source, you add wires, which adds costs and the possibility of picking up interference.  If you are going to take a risk adding an external DAC, make sure its a DAMN good one.  

p.s.  That's the way to do it, server with half-a-terr. on a gigabit network, quiet workstation near (well, 7ft away) I'll never go back, monkey's audio for life!

Hope it helps,
--BillyM

[greigmg]

That makes perfect sense to me - and I'd rather keep it all digital and not mess with external DAC, etc. etc.  I hadn't really thought of the pure physics of what I was trying to send across.  Looks like it's the Xitel Pro for me.

[greigmg]

Yeah, my plan is to take my sister's old compaq (pIII, etc.) and fill it with hard drives and a wireless card, stick it in a closet somewhere, and map it to the laptop.  The slow part will be ripping all my discs back onto the drive.

[greigmg]

Well I now have a Pioneer Elite VSX-41 and a Def Tech pro sub 80.  After I get some more dough I'm going to upgrade all the cables/wires and replace the main speakers.  

But with just the receiver and sub it already sounds a million times better, I'm pretty pumped.  Thanks for everyone's help and input.