The ultimate soundcard for Audiophile stereo sound

[MrHyde1969]

Hi,

I am looking for the best soundcard outthere for pure stereo sound. Not bother about anything else. Price isnt much of a problem....
Any help or suggestions, plus do I need to download any seperate audio drivers to get the best sound available???
Many thanks

[Gixxerblade]

LynxTwo cards are highly regarded. Does it have to be a soundcard? Have a look at Empirical audio for some ideas.

[MrHyde1969]

Hi Gixxerblade,

I have found this for outputting the sound digitally via usb and then sending the analoque onto my amp. What do you reckon about this soloutionhttp://www.maudio.co.uk/products/en_gb/AudiophileUSB-main.html?

[dogbert]

if your amp has digital input ports, a simple cmedia based card with spdif suffices - the digital transmission of an audio signal is lossless and hence the optimum.

[MrHyde1969]

Originally Posted by dogbert

if your amp has digital input ports, a simple cmedia based card with spdif suffices - the digital transmission of an audio signal is lossless and hence the optimum.

Doesnt this only work with multi chanel sound? I just want to get stereo sound for playback of my WAV's

[dogbert]

quite on the contrary - unless multi-channel sound has been compressed to lossy formats like dts or DD, it can't be squeezed through SPDIF. This limitation makes it impossible for multichannel sound from games which is rendered in realtime to be digitally transmitted to the receiver (unless there are some stretches employed like a real time DD encoder in the driver).
Regular 2-channel PCM however (the standard format of CDs and consequently of all its derived formats like WAV, FLAC, mp3 and so on) is perfectly suited for SPDIF - the standard has been specifically designed for this task.

[MrHyde1969]

So forgive me for sounding stupid but, how would I get my stereo wavs to be outputted as SPDIF from my soundcard? I have my DVD's outputted as SPDIF but when it comes to my music, i just use the regular sound connection.

[dogbert]

this depends on your driver - usually when you play a music file, it's sent both to the analog (3.5mm) and digital (SPDIF) ports.
SPDIF might have been disabled because you've selected a speaker configuration other than stereo in the "Sound" applet of the control panel of Windows, or you need to activate the SPDIF port for regular PCM somewhere in the applications which belong to the sound driver of your soundcard.

[Gixxerblade]

Dogbert describes what I use namely a coaxial spdif connection to my Lexicon processor. I use Vista and it is simple to switch between outputs but I don't bother I just use spdif as it sounds great to me in stereo and films. I rip CDs to the hard drive and store them as wav files, I'm very happy with the sound quality.

Some people say the Lynxtwo cards are the best sound they've heard anywhere even at shows and Empirical audio are very well regarded but not a solution for me as I have a simple stereo and surround sound solution using spdif in to the processor which I'm very happy with.

[mark88]

Wouldn't it be silly to spend lots on an expensive sound card only to output via digital 1 and 0s?

I think you need to decide whether you want to output analogue or digital first. I use analogue outs on an RME HDSP 9632

[dogbert]

Wouldn't it be silly to spend lots on an expensive sound card only to output via digital 1 and 0s?

yeah, pretty much .

[AIstudio]

the Lynxtwo cards are the best sound they've heard anywhere

I should hope so for the price

Model A £1004; Model B £934; Model C £1051. Prices include VAT.

taken from here

SoundOnSound

Kev

[Sukh-K]

Originally Posted by AIstudio

I should hope so for the price

Model A £1004; Model B £934; Model C £1051. Prices include VAT.

taken from here

SoundOnSound

Kev

Originally Posted by MrHyde1969

Hi,

I am looking for the best soundcard outthere for pure stereo sound. Not bother about anything else. Price isnt much of a problem....
Any help or suggestions, plus do I need to download any seperate audio drivers to get the best sound available???
Many thanks

OMG i think this might just be a lil bit of a problem.

Considering the money, a dedicated high quality hi-fi system will be a better bet...might even be cheaper

[Labarum]

Originally Posted by Sukh-K

OMG i think this might just be a lil bit of a problem.

Considering the money, a dedicated high quality hi-fi system will be a better bet...might even be cheaper

AVIs digital speakers can be had for that price!

http://www.avihifi.com/

[mattstan]

Someone pointed me to this thread from another avforums forum and it is of particular interest to me.

My CD collection is now nearly converted to FLAC and I want to use PC software to play my music through an amp.

I did not realize -before reading this thread- that I could achieve this totally losslessly by using a digital connection to an amp, what good news.

I had been thinking of connecting the sound card to an amp in the Cambridge Audio Azur range but they don't seem to have a digital (SPDIF) port. Can you guys, who know so much more about all this than I do (bit of a newbie here), recommend a suitable amp in the £150-250 price range. I was thinking of connecting the amp to the Mordaunt Short 906i speakers, which I understand come highly recommended on avforums.com.

The room the system will be in is a large open plan living/dining/kitchen flat design in case that makes a difference to any recommendations.

Thanks all, and esp. to dogbert for the invaluable info. in the thread concerning lossless formats arriving -still lossless- at the amp over a digital connection and so my not having to spend lots of ££s on a serious soundcard which I thought I was going to have to do.

Cheers, matt