Is there such a soundcard that does not resample everything to 48Khz and does not equalize digital sound, and does not have high/low-pass filtering for digital sound. It just plays my 16bit 44.1KHz digital stereo recordings through its S/PDIF connector...well...WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING.

An USB/SPDIF converter would be a possibility if it exists, or just bare pci SP/DIF port without any volume controls/EQ or any such extra logic.

Currently i am using my old aureal sq2500 (vortex2) for digital output (through ASIO/KS). However, its a AC97 card, so i have to use SSRC resampling with foobar. I would like to get rid of that SSRC process without adding any other kinds of sound coloring process between foobar and my amplifier.

The soundcard would be in a separate "media" PC that is only used for playing music, so the soundcard does not need to be good for gaming.


p.s I dont to pay hundreds of euros for hardware, which is expected to do nothing. Golden SPDIF connector and BS like that are not needed either.

Chaintech AV-710 with firmware flashed to Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1. Costs $25 and will offer bitperfect S/PDIF output (at least with the firmware flash, I'm not entirely sure if it is possible with stock firmware).

should be fine with stock firmware also

Do you know this for sure, or is that just a guess? I would def buy one if thats true but I'd rather not go through the hassle of buying, testing, taking it back etc. Thanks

I could actually try to test it if my iRiver H120 allows "bitperfect" recording (so only a positive result can be proven now).

Sounds interesting, but i got some questions.

* Is the flashing done like flashing mobo bios or vid card firmware? Just run a flashing software from dos boot and give filename to flash, etc...?.

* Do i need to check something on the soundcard before flashing, hw versions, chip types, etc?

* Where can i get this Audiotrak firmware? Any firmware version will do, or only a certain version?

Anyways, I just ordered one. Closest one to Finland i could find was from Norway. Those cards seems to be really rare in EU.

According to this, the card should be able to play bitperfect at 44.1Khz at least with VIA drivers and ASIO.

I don't remember the exact procedure, but it was similar to flashing a mobo/video card bios. Try searching head-fi.org for instructions (and needed files). I forgot to mention one downside of flashing the card with Audiotrak firmware; analog outputs cannot be used.



Ordered mine from US compgeeks.com (to Finland) One of the norwegian shops didn't bother replying to my mails so...

Quite possible.

Is the AV-710 good when using the official drivers and firmware? I only need a (stereo) card with bit-exact optical output. Also, it should not resample to 48 KHz. I am also open for alternates.
The Terratec Aureon 5.1 PCI seemed to be OK, but I heard that its DAC is pretty crappy. Same applies to Chantech AV-515M abd AV-512 (all three using C-Media chips).

Finally got the card this week. Never tried it with the drivers on the CD, but downloaded the drivers from VIA website (Envy24_Family_Drivers_V432b.zip). I installed asio4all (with 1024 samples and 2 buffers) and setup fb2k output format as 24bit padded to 32bit. The card is in 2-channel PCM mode (using 44.1Khz, NOT hi-res mode). SPDIF volume is set to max, everything else is muted, even main volume.

I am currently playing 5.1 channel DTS stream with fb2k through the optical S/PDIF (still using the 2-channel PCM mode in the driver control panel) to my Yamaha RX-V1400. So, i think the card is bit perfect without any firmware flashing, otherwise i would just hear static.

EMU 0404.

Terratec EWX 24/96 has perfectly digital in & out.

Though, I would like to know about cheaper alternatives for another PC or laptop solution ?