High end Computer soundcard ?

[Thomas]

i dont see a balanced connection on that card, how can it be the best.

I hoped the spelling was unclear enough. 🙄

It was meant as an example, I didn't said THAT particular soundcard was the best. If I did, I would have gotten 1000's of hate-mails from SB16 owners telling me different. I hope you realize that.

 

[Petter]

Terratec Aureon Space versus M-Audio Revolution:

M-audio appears to be a more worthile card since it offers 24/192 on both input and output. Terratec falls down to 24/96 on one of these making it less interesting for things such as measurements.

Petter

 

[Tieftoener]

I once saw a motherboad with a built-in sound card that was tube driven. It was in Audio Express magazine.

Yes, they do exist. Aopen is the manufacturer. I haven't found any reviews on them other than ths stupid marketing briefs. However, I am fairly impressed with the level of commitment that the owner of Aopen put into them. He is a tube lover, and worked with engineers for months testing different tubes, and capacitors in the power supply of the tube output (I'm on the mailing list for updates on that board - I'd supply more details, but that email is at home, not at work). And of course, you could replace the tube with your own garden variety. They are only P4 Intel 845E chipsets that I am aware of.

They go for about $150 at www.newegg.com. I've wanted one to check out just for the heck of it ever since I saw the first brief on them about a year ago. They came out around December '02 I believe. Just found a link for one,

here.

On the bright side, the 845 is the fastest chipset out there for the P4 now. The 845GE and 845PE are slightly better, but nothing to bawk at when your getting the advantage of the tubes.

Ok - sorry mistaken - there are 845GE and 845PE Tube boards from Aopen. Check out the Tube Sound page at Aopen.

Highlights of the board include: Multicap output capacitors, Cardas wire, Kimber Kable wire, WBT connectors (optional). As I said before, it seems like they've actually put some listening tests into consideration in their design which is unfortunately very uncommon in audio companies these days.

Hope this helps,