Noob ? here... I'm trying to push the highest quality sound I can to my reciever (for music). Would it be better to use a high quality soundcard like a SB XiFi Music (or even an older SB Live!) or use an external device like an ADS Tech Instant Music or Edirol UA-1A. I have the above pieces and plan to do some subjective testing but was wondering if anyone knows, right-off-the-bat, whether or not one is likely superior to the other in sound quality, distortion, etc. If I use the ADS Tech I'll do optical-digital straight to the reciever. ...again... wondering if that signal processing is better than what the SoundBlasters would push (using decent audio cables of course).

Any constructive advice is much appreciated. 8O

I have a SB Live, and an X-Fi Platinum.

The X-Fi is better in almost every way. I use it for games/music/movies. The way it is able to do the 3d sound off of stereo is much better than even the audigy 2 that I use for presentations at work. For anything with low bitrate audio 128 - 320kb/s the crystalizer is amazing. It isn't the true sound, but it adds stuff in and I personally love it. I'm guessing a lot of people would complain about it distoring the sound that your supposed to hear, but it sounds better so I don't care. The only downsides about it are that you have to switch between modes when going from gaming to movies/music, and that it doesn't encode surround onto the fiber lines. So if you want surround through fiber you need to a movie that is in surround and you need to set it to pass through, you can't play games in surround over the fiber.

Yes X-Fi is a good soundcard for musics and entertainment as well as games. I have mine for a while now and I'm still impressed what it can do. Sure it cost $100 to get one, but it's better than the onboard audio especially when using good quality speakers. Go for it.

Thanks for the info. I (begrudgingly (sp?)) took XiFi out of my XPS 600 and put in the HTPC good sound. Then I hooked up the ADS Instant Music (IM) and went digital-optical (toslink) to my reciever.

OMG Woooow!

I had to turn the reciever down! The the XiFi sounded good though it sounded a little muddy. It could be the Monster audio interconnects? ...but the ADS IM sounds great. Loud...crisp...extremely clear! That was $50 I'm glad I spent. I'll put the XiFi music back to sleep in the Dell. Now I know.