External sound device vs PCI soundcard

External is definitely better. We use an external ESI U24 for our acoustical measurements. The noise floor is much lower this way--even on a battery operated laptop. I'm not familiar with the one you mentioned, but I would expect it would be superior to an internal. The only other option is that some PCs have SPDIF output--then you could go to a good D/A. I have not done this latter one myself, so there could be some configuration issues (such as sample rate and bit depth), but perhaps other a-goners have done this and can comment on it.

Thanks Rives

Yea, I looked into using an external/stand a lone DAC for 2.1 and 5.1 sound. But here in little old New Zealand it is quite pricey buy one new and there is little in the way of second hand.

I've carried on searching and from reviews I’ve come across I narrowed it down to four contenders. First is the M-audio Sonic Theater USB, second is the M-Audio Revelation 7.1 PCI, thirdly the Terrtac Sky 5.1 PCI and lastly the M-Audio Audiophile 2496.

Most theses cards are in the same price range $300.00 - $450.00 NZ, so if I weigh up the sound quality of the output signal from each card, is it most likely that the Sonic Theater will come out on top because its outside of the case?

Any thoughts.

P.s, just to clarify, the quality of the output signal is my sole measurement criteria. I know that usb sound devices can use added PC resources but with a high end HTPC it won’t be an issue.

If I need to provide more info get more responses let me know.

It's just that most other forums I've visited that deal with PC audio reason that a semi-pro soundcard is insulated against electrical noise and does not affect the DAC, which seems to contradict views on this site.

I have an M-Audio FireWire 410 FireWire external digital audio interface and it has no noise as far as I can hear. The quality is outstanding and it is capable of supporting multichannel playback. M-Audio recently released the less expensive FireWire Audiophile which I would prefer over the USB Audiophile interface. Even with USB 2.0, I am not excited about the bus technology in terms of avoiding resource conflicts. FireWire, in my opinion, is a more media-friendly bus for handling bandwidth-intensive I/O. You might be better off going with the FireWire Audiophile as it also draws power from a wall wart power supply rather than through the bus connection like the M-Audio Sonica. Sometimes drawing power through the data bus can be a resource problem. Let the data bus be a data bus.

Now just to address the internal vs. external argument, I would say that there are many who are misled to believe that an external audio interface is better than an internal simply because it sits outside of a PC chassis. True, the PC chassis interior can be a noisy environment, but some high quality PCI-based cards have been rigorously evaluated against external audio interfaces and have been judged to be superior to some external DACs. It all comes down to circuit design and layout, quality of the components used in the circuits and the quality of the PC itself including power supply unit, motherboard design and quality, etc. Craig Anderton, a highly esteemed audio engineer and editor for EQ Magazine changed his views toward PCI soundcard audio interfaces when he came across the Lynx Studio Technology PCI soundcards.

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