What is the sound quality from PC to home stereo.


What is the sound quality from PC to home stereo without the use of a DAC. I have a Mcintosh C39 preamp, Mcintosh MC352 Amp and Ifinite slope speakers. Will the sound quality be equivalent to a low end CD player or better?
bodine
It depends on the sound card or DAC; assuming a decent CD Drive and everything else.

I ran direct to my amp from an M-Audio Revolution and it was pretty good - couldn't touch my Simaudio Moon Nova; but definitely good. I have since switched to a Stereolink USB DAC and the gap has shrunk even more.

Certainly a lot better than my Sony DVP-NS4000 DVD Player.

Note: Using Foobar as the player without any tweaks.
Kennyt,
The Ifinite slopes that I have are the smaller ones from around 1987. I'll look and see which model#. They still sound great.
Bodine -- It sounds like you've invested some time and money in your system, so I question whether you'd ever be satisfied using whatever soundcard is in your computer as the DAC.

I recently had the Wavelelngth Brick -- a DAC that accepts the usb output of your computer. At $1750, it's not cheap, but it and the iMac G5 together are better than any CD player I've ever had (most recently the Exemplar/Denon 2800 -- a very good model, itself). I only got rid of the Brick to upgrade to the Wavelength Cosecant.
Bodine,

The small JSE's were the 1.0's, bought mine about that time, got the 1.8's this year in 8-9/10 condition locally...love 'em!