PC to ext. DAC?

Does it have a digital output? If so, yes you can. Usually the ouptut is located ON the soundcard. If not you will have to buy another soundcard that has either a coaxial or optical output. My comp has a TOSLINK output that i feed to either my DAC or my DAT recorders.

I have done the same thing with my soundblaster card. The high end ($150+) soundblasters have digital outs. Honestly they don't sound all that great, even going through a DAC. I note that I used a long (6 foot) optical cable. I ended up selling the DAC, and using the equally crummy analog outputs. I speculate the crummy sound was related to the cheapo-depot transports used in computer cd roms.

If it's gonna be bad, it might as well be cheap ! You might want to check out guitar center. They sell some more pro-quality pc soundcards at significant discounts. Note that some of these 'musician' soundcards are not certified compatible for many games.

I think your problem was the Soundblaster card, I've heard nothing but bad about them. If i remember correctly they do sample rate converting before it feeds out the signal from 44.1 to 48khz. I have absoltely no complaints about the SQ of my soundcard.