The digital output of the SB3 is very good and will outperform the EMU (or pretty much any PC card less than a word-clocked Nuendo or similar pro card - and probably those too). Certainly the various semi-pro/pro cards I've used don't really compare too favourably - but YMMV.
(to be clear - The issue is most likely to be one of noise from the PC affecting the quality of the digital (actually analogue squarewave!) waveform and of course jitter on the SPDIF. I believe that it is in these areas that the SB will beat PC hosted cards - the PC is a pretty hostile envrionment for audio quality - it wasn't designed to be good for this!) A linear supply make a slight improvement to the digital output buts it's not a "night and day" thing and depends on the rest of your system in my experience. Whether your (unspecified) AVR is up to telling the difference is hard to say... Phil -- Phil Leigh ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phil Leigh's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=85 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=30789 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
