External sound device vs PCI soundcard

I'm using the M-Audio USB Audiophile with my system and am amazed at the soundstaging I'm getting even from Internet radio stations. I'm about to pull the plug on all my standalone CD players in favor of a PC w/an outboard soundcard.

Initially, I used the Creative Extigy but found that the software they supply tends to 'take over' your computer. Also, their release processes for updates is *really* tedious and prone to updates crashing other software. This, I believe, is the result of using different software houses to produce their software products.

Granted, M-audio doesn't update their products often, the quality of the sound is excellent. No experience beyond that one model but I do see their stuff used frequently with semi-professionals around the area here in CA, which says something.

I'm just blown away with the quality of sound for the price. Forget outboard DACs from now on.....

Cheers,

David

I have juts aquired a USB driven M-Audio sound card, called MobilePre. I havent had time to test it thorougly yet, but my intention is to use it as a mobile test-setup with a laptop and a Behringer Microphone.

Anyone has some experience with this card used as a mobile testsystem like I intend to, or any other experiences with this soundcard?

Rgds,
Jonas

If PC is located in another room, what's the max USB2.0 or Firewire cable's length possible? Ethernet is unlimited in terms of a house, but with the first two there may be a problem...

The optimum solution will be a high-quality DAC, such as a Benchmark with a USB interface installed, or an outboard USB-to-S/PDIF coax converter. Installing the USB interface inside the DAC is better, but the outboard converter can be quite excellent as well. Far better than the best transport on the market.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manufacturer

I picked up a Lynx One sound card (msrp $500) on ebay for $200, using Monkey Audio (APE) for lossless compresion, and foobar 2000 for my media player. It all sounds great but the sound card is designed for professional sound mixing people and sometimes I wonder if this makes the card a bit more difficult to work with. But it sounds great and I sold my MSB Dac/ McCormick Transport, have never looked back.

Audio/Video
Sherwood Newcastle AVP-9080R preamp
Sherbourn 5/1500A amp (5 x 200 watt/ch)
Front Speakers – Paradigm studio 20’s
Center – Paradigm Reference CC
Rears – Monitor Audio Silver S1
Sub – PSB Century SubSonic 2I
DVD/CD Kenwood Sovereign DV-5700 (w/ DVD audio)
Sony 36” XBR450, HDTV

Computer
Motherboard- MSI K7N2G-ILSR, CPU – AMD Athlon 2500, Window XP home, RAM – Kingston 512mb
Hard Drive – Maxtor 160GB, Case – Antec Sonata w/ Thermalright heatsink and Panaflo L1a fan
Video Card – ATI AIW 9600, Transcoder- Crescendo-Systems TCP2200, Powerstrip
Sound Card – LynxOne, Media Player – Foobar
DVD/CD Burner – Plextor PX-708A