A few months ago I had to buy a new motherboard (one I had was getting very unreliable). Took me a long time to find one with exactly one ISA slot. But I did it. P2-933, 256mb, 93gb, ISA SBA64G and for a touch of retro styling, a 5 1/4" floppy drive. :-)

GregoriousM,
Yes, most sound cards use D/A chips that are even cheaper than most CD players! You should be able to hear the difference between the analog outs and the digital out if your receiver is a quality one.

My reference to most people not being able to hear the difference without a direct comparison is a documented fact. Audio memory is poor and can be influenced by many things including the presentor, making actual comparisons very difficult unless you can do them seconds apart. Video memory is much better but still quite short.

It is my opinion you should keep the signal digital for as long as you can and use quality cables. On that note, I have always heard that any 75ohm cable will do and have been a firm believer/follower. I recently heard a demo with a decent digital cable that ships standard with Meridian speakers and one from Transparent. Everyone in the room was shocked at the difference. I have no explanation, but a lot of theories yet to be pursued. I have heard every cable manufacturer tout their greatness and have heard only minor differences between quality cables (all sound better than the cheap ones) and have always been prudent on buying into the super high end, especially with digital. Boy was I surprised!

Never say never!

BTW, there are two Randy's on this thread, my comments are the ones with the lower case "r". As far as Randy's comments on how great the PC sounds, I am happy for him, but I have never heard a truly great sounding MP3. I have heard many acceptable sounding high res ones using a digital out into a quality system, but none like a high end red book CD transport! Part of his content might be seen in his response of going through "5 receivers....". There are very few receivers capable of playing truly high end music. Again, not to be snobby, just stating my opinion. Receivers have a definite place in life and are a godsend for many people, so please don't let anyone be offended and start a rash of hate mail!

If your happy with what you have, enjoy it! I know many experts in the field that can't even enjoy music anymore and I hope I never become that expert!

If I am trying to get sound from my 550-mhz athlon system into my stereo system I use the SPDIF output on my SoundBlaster Live Platinum run a RG6 cable to the coaxial digital input on my Lexicon DC-2 which has 24 bit DAC's. Makes a big difference in sound. Plus you only have to run one cable for 2 channels of audio instead of 2.

And also the SB Live Platinum has SPDIF input, so I can run the digital output from the DC-2 to the computer and record music say off the music channels that are on my DSS which has a fiber optic cable from it going to the DC-2. The point is I try to keep it all digital from beginning to end.

But that is just my idea. I don't listen to MP3 at home I only get them off the net to record on CD-R to play in my truck, where I am not so picky about the sound.