THX Sound Card Questions

[Guest]

I am planning to build a gaming PC at a cost between $2,000 and $2,200 early next year. I know that I want a THX-certified sound card to connect to my Logitech Z623 computer speaker system. The only other major thing that I will be doing with my future PC is listening to music files in the FLAC format. I am looking at the THX sound cards made by Creative and have the following questions:

1. Would I get noticeably better sound quality using THX-certified RCA audio cables with a THX-certified sound card that has RCA plugs than a cable and THX sound card with a 3.5 mm jack and plug?

2. Are there any other reliable sound card companies that make THX-certified sound cards?

 

[cl-scott]

Given you have a 2.1 speaker set with no Dolby and DTS decoder chips, I would tend to think you'd be wasting your money on a THX card. In the case of your speakers, it just means that they have a certain frequency response range that meets the minimum required for THX certification.

That said... If you're dealing with analog signals being sent over different types of cables, then the quality will matter. They don't necessarily need to be THX certified, just good quality, so maybe gold plated. Of course unless you're a serious audiophile and can (or at least think you can) pick out very small differences in audio quality... You probably would be hard pressed to tell the difference between any two random cables.

That being said, generally speaking the more you split up signals the better. So having separate cables for the R and L channel is better than a single cable for both.