Hehe, I thought nobody would pick up on it... but suddenly this topic pops up again



That's the thing, it's not an issue! See the measurements of that Indigo card, or some of the sound card reviews at http://www.digit-life.com/sound.html?archdate - you'll find that no such pc-internals interference problems are found in proper cards.



I think Pio2001 did a test once with a loop from his sound card with several meters of cheap coaxial cable to connect the output to the input, then trying to abx. Guess what the results were....

Ofcourse 15m through "enemy territory" (the fridge ) is stretching things, also because you get nasty stuff with ground loops and such. It's more than reasonable to use a digital link there. If you'd really want though, you could have a pro-style balanced connection, and it would still be affordable too: EMU 1212M (150euro in NL), Behringer A500 integrated amp (200euro in NL).

Hi. i hope Pio will pop in on this. If I remember correctly his loop via spdif was not just inaudible but bit perfect.

No, the test I was thinking of wasn't about a digital loop. I'll search for it....
...and found it: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ost&p=70283

And here are measurements of the CD player line out -> DAT deck line in done through various CINCH cables : http://perso.numericable.fr/laguill2/pictu...CablesModul.ZIP

The interesting one is Std-Standard-6metres.htm
It is the comparison of the measurement done with a standard 1 meter cable, and the same thing with an additional 5 meters extension. We can see that the only significant difference is the crosstalk below 40 Hz.

It was part of an interconnect blind test : http://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=29781210
Which had some follow-up : http://www.homecinema-fr.com/forum/viewtop...t=240#168903915

Yeah I was looking at my followed threads...

Well, there is at least one thing my new card fixed...
The audigy DIGITAL OUT quite occasionally made a LOUD (0dB) pop in my speakers (behind my external DAC, yes) when my fridge turned on What a bad design that must be. (Im referring to the card, not the fridge.. maybe I should buy an audiophile fridge next time ) I think next to resampling internally, the audigy also runs the sound through some conductor receiving loop just for the fun of it.

Heh yeah I sortof expected as much. Still. Me no like-y crosstalk.

Exactly.. hmm, is there some way to extend the PCI bus to 15m and have my soundcard in a little box next to the stereo?

grumblegrumble, found a 1212 on marktplaats.nl ('ebay') for E75. Mailed the guy, no response.. called.. nothing.. mailed.. then gave up and bought the revolution 5.1.

Anyway, there definately are noticable differences between DAC's, most notably things like quantum noise shifting, proper interpolation etc. For a 44khz 16bit signal I do feel at least more comfortable handing my preciously preserved digital data to my pretty pro-looking 19" rackmount DAC than some chip (made by VIA no less) on a midclass soundcard

But frankly well the same thing applies for cables, as you correctly pointed to pio's results. Personally Ive bought $10/foot stiff cable, which (due to its stiffness) I can easily make to avoid contact (and thereby crosstalk) with any other electric cable. Ive tinkered a bit, and each wire is at least 10cm away from every other cable. That's gotta count for something right? right?

Didn't they create Firewire for that?



Noticable or notable?
I have no idea what "quantum noise shifting" and proper interpolation refer to. Any links?

They did?


Uh. I don't know what I was on when I wrote that but it must've been good. (that, or Philips named it strangely) but I was referring to quantization Noise Shaping (by shifting it to the inaudible domain)