USB vs Digital Out from Audigy 2 Sound Card

I like my Edirol UA-1D--I run it into a Theta IIIA, and the set up works nicely for MP3s and WAVs. That said, if you already have a digital out, I don't know how much you gain. I did note, in the incarnations of my set up, that a long USB run to the UA-1D was much better sounding than long coax or optical runs from the UA-1D, which might be a consideration if your DAC is a long way from your computer.

According to some postings on Headfi.org, SB Audigy 2 card resample all 44.1 kHz signal everything to 48 kHz for internal processing and then output to 44.1 kHz again. This process will introduce non-exact digital out and is quite common amoung computer sound card.

You might want to do some research on bit perfect digital output on headfi.org.

The Edirol does too, apparently. The Head Fi guys seem to recommend M-Audio Transits or M-Audio Sonicas. Those don't work for me, however, b/c I've only got an RCA PCM input to my DAC.

Thanks to Edesilva & Ejliu for your responses. I'll certainly check out Headfi.org & the M-Audio products - thanks for the heads-up! My DAC is only a short distance from my PC so distance is not a problem.

Regards,Bob

If you want another PCI sound card option, you can use a $25 Chaintech AV-710. It's a very good sounding option. I just installed one according to the instruction posted on headfi.org. You might be surprised by how good it sounds.

It only has an optical digital output however.

Thanks Ejliu, I'll check out the AV-710