Best soundcard for optical out to DAC?

[ChrisII]

Hey all,

I just inherited my dad's Quad CD-P CD player, which has 3 optical inputs as well as 3 coaxial digital inputs.

I'm thinking of using the CD-P as my pre-amp, instead of my Roksan Kandy MkIII. I also inherited a Quad 909 Power Amp, which in my tests have proven to be better than the MkIII alone (not suprising as the MKIII is worth about 1200, and the CDP+AMP is nearly 4K of stuff)

I don't want to spend a fortune, just want a good optical out to feed to the CDP... I'd use the motherboards optical out if somebody tells me it won't have any adverse impact on the sound quality.

What's the cheapest way to go about this?

Regards,

Chris.

I have a 20 ft optic cable I'd use, and not that it's relevant, but my speakers are Acoustic Zen Adagios.



EDIT: I also have a Roku Soundbridge... which has optical out.

 

[450]

I don't know if this is still true but I remember reading that many of the cheaper optical/coaxial outputs like that found on the motherboard usually upsample 44.1 KHz to 48 KHz which wouldn't make a big difference for a $150 computer speaker set but when you're talking about a $4000 set then maybe it is wise to use something better than motherboard digital.

I'd think a USB E-MU 0202 or 0404 would work well for you because USB would bring the sound away from the interference that's inside of a computer.

EDIT: Pretty much any USB soundcard from E-MU or M-Audio should do the trick I'd think. More than $100 shouldn't be needed.

 

[ashmedai]

As long as it outputs the standard you want to input, any device's 1s and 0s will look just like the 1s and 0s from a more expensive device. So there's not much point to spending a lot here. A $20 USB dongle will do exactly the same job where digital signals are concerned as much more expensive device, provided it does what you want at all.