SPDIF output :sound card vs. integrated

rbrb · « **on:** 18 Apr 2006, 12:56 am »

Is there and advantage sonically by using a high quality sound card instead of the integrated sound from a mother board when "only" using the digital output from either a fiber optic or coax connection?

ehider · « **Reply #1 on:** 18 Apr 2006, 03:05 am »

The answer to your question really depends on which sound card as compared to the inegrated device. Just like in high end D/A converters sounding so different, digital is not all the same sonically. The converter chipset, the clock, the receiver chipsets and weather it is dual mono or not all conspire to affect the overall sonics of the digital signal alone. If it were only about bits......

rbrb · « **Reply #2 on:** 18 Apr 2006, 02:42 pm »

Makes sense, Thanks!

ricmon · « **Reply #3 on:** 18 Apr 2006, 03:33 pm »

It really depends on the audio codec used with the mobo. As with as things digital it's the combination of the hardware and software. Check these sites.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdext/is_200307/ai_ziff44174

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1560783,00.asp

boead · « **Reply #4 on:** 18 Apr 2006, 03:33 pm »

Sure it makes sense but…

\There are only a handful of chips onboard PC mainboards and just one or two dominate the market to such a point that it leaves hardly no room for variation.

Most mainboards have a Realtek chip of only a few varieties. I can safely assume that nearly all of these are equal enough by design to yield the same results in regards to digital output.

So the question can easily be answered.

Is an onboard digital output ‘good enough’ for an offboard DAC? Is jitter so high that the loss of detail and focus for sound staging is significantly degraded? Is this an inherent issue?

Is using a high quality PCI digital IO card enough to make a significant difference?

Is the digital output from a USB device enough to make a significant improvement?

These are the only two viable solutions to an onboard digital output!
I tried (and still own) an M-Audio Delta DIO which is a $300+ PCI digital IO card. Compared to an onboard Intel sound device (not particularly popular on mainboards today) that uses toslink didn’t show a significant loss in detail or soundstage compared to the much better M-Audio PCI card when I compared them some time ago.

Is this why a small handful of companies made special devices that convert USB to SPDIF? RWA puts great efforts in modifying the SB3 just for digital output.

This is actually an important topic since the popularity of PC audio is growing at an exponential rate.

rbrb · « **Reply #5 on:** 19 Apr 2006, 04:00 pm »

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I'll go with a soundcard. For under $100 I can get a M-Audio Revolution 5.1 which will give me better sound at my desktop through desktop monitors. It's relatively inexpensive enough to so that I can make a comparison for myself by sending a digital signal to my Processor/DAC via digital coax.