Hey there, I totally understand wanting to wait and do things one at a time.
It appears that the card holds its own in most catagories, but comes up short in catagories such as soundstage.
You might be reading about the card's analog output. I am guessing this is due to the op amps used (STX II uses the MUSES op amps, the original ST/STX used the LM4562 op amps). The soundstage would be improved by upgrading them to something like OPA2211 or AD797, but that's not what you would be using the card for. You would only use the card for digital COAX output. As far as I know, this is the best solution that supports Windows 10. There are other cards, but they are older and limited to Windows 7 (such as M-Audio) or they might not have a proper COAX (using a 1/8" plug for spdif), or they are insanely expensive like the RME Audio card at $1,000.
Secondarily will be Bluray formats - still getting up to speed on how who is releasing what music formats on bluray.
No problem. As I said, you would need an HDMI interface for the bluray audio formats. HDMI is the only licensed interface that will support Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA formats. You could do this by getting a video card with HDMI output. I read a little that VLC will support audio through the HDMI output. Other players, such as JRiver or PowerDVD, should support it to.
If you used COAX or optical output, the player software would have to down-convert the Dolby TrueHD / DTS-HD MA to the older compressed Dolby Digital or DTS formats before sending the bitstream data out. COAX will still support 2-channel PCM audio up to 24/192.
