QUOTE
Do you all think all SPDIF Out are built equally quality? I am afraid not.
Nope, I don't think so.
But in the absence of evidence to show that these
particular S/PDIF solutions have jitter problems not seen (or more audible than) in the newer solutions you and I recommended, I have no good reason to recommend more expensive solutions.
I would anticipate, for example, that the SB Live! SPDIF out would be
very similar to the Audigy as well as the TBSC and the Hercules Fortissimo and Game Theater devices.
They all will probably reample the digital out, and the Live! will probably do the worst job of it. I'm not altogether sure that the ALC650 would do so, but given that it's an AC97 solution, I wouldn't doubt it.
Do you have evidence to suggest that jitter is more endemic to the Live! SPDIF than the Audigy and that this is audible?
-> If the poster wants a card to do straight-through 44.1 without resampling, I'd say his best bet is an Envy24-based solution and not an EMU (Creative) or Crystal (Turtle Beach, Hercules) based-solution at all.
The problem is, we don't know whether he want to use digital or analog out.