how to get bit-perfect output from Nvidia-based Shuttle box

Archived from groups: rec.audio.tech,comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.tech (More info?)

Hello,

I have a Shuttle SN45G with the Nvidia Nforce2 MCP-T chipset. It has
line out, SPDIF out, USB, and Firewire, but no free PCI slots. I think
I will get some kind of an external soundcard or DAC. I would like to
know if it is possible to get bit perfect output all the way to the
external DAC, and then go to my amp, which has a volume knob.

The issues are the following:

Even though there is a SPDIF out, I think everything gets resampled to
48kHz by the Nvidia chip anyway. So it seems that the SPDIF will only
be useful if I want to watch movies or play games and send dolby sound
to the rear speakers. In this case, I won't care about sound quality.

The first question is if I can get a bit perfect 44 kHz signal out the
usb or firewire port onto an external device. I guess this would mean
that I can bypass the nvidia chip as well as the windows kmixer, which
would rescale the volume.

The second question is whether external devices know what to do with
these signals. For example, the Creative Extigy has USB, but then I
don't really know if it stays 44 kHz inside, or whether there is some
resampling going on. Another example is the M-Audio Audiophile Firewire
or Solo. Uhh, can you even send audio in thru the firewire port, or are
they only for recording and send signals back to the computer? (Sorry,
I can't really tell from the description.) Do either of these devices
do digital rescaling of the volume?

Well anyway, I am looking for the cheapest way to get bit perfect audio
out of my shuttle box and have it converted with a good DAC. Failing
that, I suppose I can resample the audio signal to 48kHz in software
(hopefully better than Nvidia's hardware resampler). How badly would
this resampling hurt the sound quality anyway? In this case, I'm
looking for a good cheap PCM SPDIF to analog converter.