Squeeze Box upgrades

"Why in the heck does he want to trade for a stock unit?"

The whole deal is kind of odd, but may have some very reasonable explanation-who knows. :)
Maybe he needs money. Maybe he is in trouble with his parents or wife who just got the credit card bill.

Let me re-word this,what are the sonic differences between a good 24/192 sound card with a breakout box or a SB3?

Gellis-

A general answer would be that it depends. What brand and model of soundcard are you talking about? If the SB3 is used in analog mode, if the SB3 is feeding a DAC, if the SB3 has any mods at all (even simple ones like a different AC power supply wall wart).

You might post your question on the PC Audio forum actually.

The answer is most likely the SB3 will sound better. There is nearly no doubt that a modded one will.

Fair question is why. Basic reason is that a soundcard is part of a computer environment which is a lousy place to do audio. There is a lot of unshielded equipment, switching power supply, drive motors, fan motors plus any amount of RF and EMI, and a very uncertain ground.

By removing the data from the computer environment by Ethernet or 802.11 or USB the analog signal that is created tends to be much cleaner because the DAC or SB is isolated electrically and mechanically from the computer.

I am not a PC guy but two other considerations in a PC are managing to do audio while avoiding the dreaded k-mixer which further degrades the signal, and cost. The audio cards that are built well enough to isolate the signal seem to be in the $1K range - much more then a lot of options.

This is a very rich topic to explore. You may also want to run a search on posts on the Audio Asylum PC Forum

"The answer is most likely the SB3 will sound better. There is nearly no doubt that a modded one will."

HArd to say as he mentioned a soundcard with a breakout box so maybe he was meaning one of the USB ones where the soundcard is actualy outside of the noisy PC environment.
But, good soundcards can be quite good. I have used pro audio cards from Echo for years and the sound is pristine and you can use ASIO drivers (bypassing the Windows stuff).

There are lots of creative options going on right now.
MAybe check out out the Emprical Audio website which has lots of inforamtion and options discussed.

I am using a modded SB3 in analog out mode (no additonal external DAC) FWIW and am pretty impressed.
Have not done a lot of A/B yet with my SACD/CD player but it
certainly is a quality piece of gear upon initial impression.