PC Sound Card as basis for DIY DAC

[georgebrooke]

There seem to be some pretty high quality PC Sound Cards available at good prices.
Has anyone looked at using one of these in a stand-alone DAC for use in a Hi Fi rig?

I am imagining that the power lines could be directly connected to the board and perhaps a simple configuration performed on a PC, but for actually running the DAC not much more than an on / off is needed.

A high-end PC DAC is around a few hundred dollars... we would need to simulate the PC connections and probably abandon all the various screen-based settings (which probably do not have relevance in Hi Fi anyway).

Anyone looking at this idea or can anyone point me to some where relevant?

[Lejonkungen]

I searched the net and found some great diy dac projects however at rather high costs. Modern smd-populated soundcards have impressive data at large volume price ratio.

I reflected the same as you georgebrook, is there anybody out there... I have a Soundblaster Live 16 bit ready to be victimized in experiments

[theAnonymous1]

Are you talking about taking a PCI soundcard and trying to run it without a PC; instead sending it a SPDIF or I2S signal somehow?

Sounds impractical if not impossible.

[Lejonkungen]

Correct. I assume the dac/adc part is working in the same way independent of being located on a soundcard or in a CD. Maybe impractical and not worthy the efforts but for sure possible!

[nightanole]

You could use one of the many usb diy sound cards that put out spdif/I2S.

The γ1 Modular Miniature DAC

GrubDAC

BantamDAC

They all use the generaly the same chip, you just have to grab or configure them for spdif, i2S is a giant bag of worms when the source/dac are not on the same pcb.

[wakibaki]

I can't see this working out. I don't think it will be an economical approach and I don't think it'll be any less technical effort than building a DAC from scratch.

No, the DAC doesn't work the same regardless of where located. More than one have options which can be hardwired OR programmed.

What do you intend to use as the source?

w

[qusp]

the settings configure the dac, where are you going to set the settings without the control interface (the computer)? the chips used will generally be of the software controlled variants, which need external control to correctly start, or do anything at all.

it's a hair-brained scheme if ever i've heard one

[Lejonkungen]

Thanks all for comments and advices. My purpose with the question? I want to test my CD transport with an external DAC and compare in a RMMA test. Why? To learn, improve, curiosity, challange and increase listening pleasure if possible.

I was proven to not having enough knowledge and thats a good start. I will look for info on the web to learn more about the architecture of soundcard. Any hints?

I looked at the homepages send by nightanole and found even more DIY DACs. I ordered the Gamma 1+2 and hope to have it build within coming months. Buffalo ll is another of interest but do not understand how to order when sold out all the time.