What do you guys think is the best quality sound card in the world? I'm getting a new one for my computer, and money is no object. I don't care if it costs $600.

Does Creative Lab's Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum really deliver?

I don't wanna buy something without doing my homework first

I can't really give you a precise answer, but only an advise:
Don't buy any Creative products!
Creative produces some of the worst soundcards for serious (non-gaming) purposes: They're all tuned for 48khz and will have to resample all 44khz audio-data.

dev0

Really? I thought Creative Lab's products were the best of the best. Oh well. What kind of sound card do you have then?

Anyone who nows a good sound card manufactuer? Man, I really need a new card quick, my other is broke. Got messed up in a electrical storm before I had my surge protector

If you want quality, check out soundcards from M-Audio or Echo. Both make "professional" cards for high end recording, etc. Superb sound quality.

I have a Delta1010 from M-Audio and have been very happy with it's sound quality. It's not really necessary though unless you plan on doing recording also.. If you don't plan on doing that, then the Audiophile 2496 is also a really good choice. Quite a few people on this board have that card also and so far I've seen nothing bad said about it.

I've heard some good things about Terratec's products (the EWX 24/96 being one of them).

Depends on what you're trying to do but the Carddeluxe from Digital Audio Labs is pretty much the gold standard for $400. It's got 1/4" TRS stereo analog ins and outs, coaxial digital in and out, and supports 24/96 resolution. There's an optional bridge for digital AES and Toslink in and out. The card can also be ganged with additional cards to support more channels if necessary, it eats up alot of slots though.

If you need lots of ins and outs that might not be the card for you, or if you are looking to get a good editing software package with the card you might want to look elswhere. If your looking at doing just straight 2 channels of digital in and out then it's definately tops in it's class.

Echo's MIA and Gina systems are also very good for their low end stuff with multiple channels. The Digidesign Digi 001 and M box come with the excellent Pro Tools LE software. Price is $1000 and $500 respectively. Kind of like buying a nice 21" monitor for $500 and it happens to come bundled with Photoshop. Could be overkill depending on what your using it for though.

-Bryn4ne

You want the Digital Audio Labs CardDeluxe. Digital Audio Labs See review from Stereophile magazine (true "audiophile" approval): CardDeluxe Review. It is as close to professional 24 bit / 96kHz performance as you'll find with true 24/96 "unresemapled" SPDIF digital I/O.

A good friend of mine has one and his comment after upgrading from a Turtle Beach Fiji was "holy..."

Price is about $600 retail, although I think even Digital Audio Labs sells it for less on their site.

Don't play around with lesser cards, get this one and be done with it.

Probably best card available now is the LynxTwo http://www.lynxstudio.com/lynxtwo.html , which is around $1000. It includes 4 analog ins and 4 outs, plus digital ins and outs, iirc. However, it does not have mic or headphone connectors. If you are listening to music at your home (don't need it for studio or measurement purposes) something like M-Audio Audiophile 2496, Echo MIA or similar is enough. If you need mic or headphone connectors get the Terratec DMX 6fire.

offtopic: reading the lynx2 specs:

any1 aware of some really cheap system capable of reading pal vitc timecode from unreliable sources? (like (pal) vhs), everything i googled so far is around 400$...

I like the looks of Layla 24 from Echo Audio:

http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/Layla/Default.htm

I'm looking for really great sound.

I have an Emagic emi 2|6 (http://www.emagic.de/english/products/hardware/emi26.html).

It's an external device connected by USB.

You have 6 outputs @ 24 bits/96 Khz, 2 outputs @ 24/192 khz and 2 inputs @ 24/192 khz. It's a professional product, so the quality is there...

The price is ok: ~350 $

It work on my laptop, so it's particularly joyful with the headphones output…

What is really pleasant is to use it with the 24 bits MAD decoder (http://www.mars.org/home/rob/proj/mpeg/mad-plugin/) for high quality mp3 and with a DVD in 5.1 if you have speakers for it (I’m using PowerDVD).

Enjoy

The other cards mentionned above also support true 24/96 unresampled SPDIF i/o.

Well, I would never ever spend $500 on a soundcard.
Because - it's just a soundcard. Right now, I own a Sound Blaster Live!, but from different soundcards I've tested with my amp and speakers, I found the best soundcard to be a very cheap one, which is surprising, because all the other soundcards in the same pricerange I've tested (SB128, Terratic i128, and more...), are actually a very dull experience. This nice discount soundcard, I'm talking about is the "Artis Jetway 738S1", which retails for less than $20.
Try search on google for a store that sells it : http://www.google.com/search?hl=da&ie=UTF-...F-8&q=738S1&lr=

And here's a review on the soundcard : http://www.backshelf.net/default.asp?dir=r...=reviews/738S1/

Maybe you also wanna take a look at this post, a summary of a review of high-end soundcards, done by the renown c't magazine:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....&f=21&t=1779&s=

To follow up on the Lynx audiocard recommendation, I'd also look into the Lynx L22. It's a 2-channel version of the acclaimed LynxTWO and is consistently favorably compared to some of the best external converters available.

To learn more about the card, I'd read through the reviews on Lynx's website. It's fairly comprehensive and provides perspectives from both the Pro Audio and Hi-Fi worlds. It's a little more expensive than your cost-no-object imposition of $600, but since you said you don't care what it costs, I figured you wouldn't mind this recommendation.

According to Arny Krueger, the Lynx2 is the best:

http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/compare/index.htm