Sound Card with External DAC

I use a SB Audigy II, which has 3.5mm s/pdif digital out, with an adapter (3.5mm mono to mono RCA), run to a Theta DSPro Basic DAC.

It sounds very nice. Much, much better than the analog outs from the sound card.

Many sound cards use this 3.5mm s/pdif out.

I would recommend, when the oportunity presents itself, that you add a dedicated transport. Any CDP should be much better than an internal CD-ROM drive in a computer.

I may upgrade to an M Audio brand card soon, I have heard they are very nice for the money. Will probably still use an outboard DAC though.

"Any CDP should be much better than an internal CD-ROM drive in a computer."

Resolution Audio used a CD-Rom as their transport in their highly regarded opus 21, so this is not necessarily true, and could be chalked up to snobbery.

While I am not familiar with Resolution audio or their setup, I am familiar with the run-of-the-mill $20.00 CD-ROM drive found in most OTC computers.

1) CD-ROMS are designed for data, NOT audio. Inspect the audio outs on any CD-ROM drive, certainly not adequate by my standards.

2) The signal path inside most Computers is data oriented. i.e. Horrific for audio, low quality jumpers here and there, poor quality connectors, poor quality cables, indiotic routing, etc.

The original poster requested information on how to best setup an outboard DAC with his Computer, I gave an informed opinion on how to best achieve this. Along with this information I included a basic observation. In mine, and every other system that I have heard, using a CDP as a transport is FAR FAR superior to the internal CD drive. Outboard DACS or analog from the Comp, either way, a dedictated transport was superior.

I have not listened to some of the very high end sound cards, however, if memeory serves me, the original poster didnt make mention of a high end music server/workstation.

So, I still believe even a "snobbish" JVC or brand-X CDP from say, Kmart, will outperform most (read: NOT ALL) internal CD-ROM drives, since, obviously they are designed with audio in mind.

Granted most CDP will sounds better than most CDRom drives, but there are probably some exceptions out there. I don't diagree with your general statement, just your absolute terms. FWIW RA pulled the CDrom because of an audible whine, but it still sounds pretty damn good!

yes, CDROMs transfer data. If you don't do D-A conversion till the audio data gets out of the computer, then nothing is lost along the way. A bit is a bit. We are in digital world here. Until the digital data is converted to analog signal, then nothing is lost. Some error checking is performed when the CDRom is reading data, either by the operating system, or the IDE controller, or the CDROm itself.

Who uses CDROM's built-in DAC these days? Windows XP reads audio data in digital by default.

yes the computer transfers and works with data. Digital audio is one form of data. Data integrity is very important in computer design. It is an insult to a computer engineer to say that the computer does not maintain data integrity.

Once you got the data out of the computer, then it is pretty much up to the DAC to give you an interpretation of the digital data.