Best soundcard if have outboard DAC

You need to bypass the Kmixer in a windows based OS. Kmixer upsamples to 48khz, this is a no-no. It does not matter that you use onboard sound or any other device as long as the output is bit perfect. Hence the $10.00 dollar Cmedia solution will output a 44.1khz bit perfect signal to the DAC.

This has been researched extensively by others and myself. I am runing Foobar2K with bit perfect output to my Music Fidelity Tri-Vista 21 DAC. Hope thhis explains it clearly and to the point.

Thanks for the great responses.

Racerxnet: That sounds like the way to go. I use Cinemar MainLobby, which is a front end for J. River MediaCenter. I believe J. River has something like bit perfect output (it has bit perfect ripping).

What kind of connection do you use to the DAC?

I am using a toslink connection due to the distance to the DAC. About 20ft. The PC outputs to the overhead projector and hence the distance involved. There is no signal loss or interference with this setup. Sounds great to me. I am using the PC as a HTPC front end / data Base. Here are the components.

KT 800 AMD PC - WinXP Pro
Electrohome 8500 CRT Projector Via PC output
Music Fidelity Tri Vista 21 DAC
Bryston BP 25 Pre Amp
Infinity Crossover
4 Bryston 7BST monobock amps
Infinity RS1B speakers.

If you must use an internal card (not the best solution), then I believe the Lynx is the best around.

When feeding to an external DAC, the sound card only needs to be bit perfect. The DAC does not care about brand names if the output is SPDIF 44.1khz. Redbook standard!!