RME external multiface/digiface > internal cards?

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Anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

Seems logical that using an external sound card for external digital out to a DAC would be better than an internal card since you can get away from the noisy environment of the pc and get cleaner power. After all it's my impression that the work clock of the sound card is very sensitive to dirtiness....

 

[MontyW]

I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying this... BUT I have a RME HDSPe AIO card in a Mac Pro and it works amazingly well!

 

I have a friend who has a Lynx L22 card also deep within his Mac Pro. Both set-ups sound fantastic.

 

Mine is direct to a pair of Dynaudio Air monitors and my friend is to a pair of Klein & Hummel O410 monitors. Both of us used to used external DACs - I used the Benchmark DAC1 and my friend a Lavry DA10. Both of us agree an internal card sounds as good and in my case better than my former external DAC.

 

Also my RME HDSPe AIO card clocks my monitors and sub.

 

I'm sure someone will come along and say internal cards not the way to go :-)

 

All the best,

 

Monty

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Guys - Internal cards can be really good if implemented well. I use a couple Lynx AES16/e cards and really like them. The thing to keep in mind is that all hardware I/O methods have flaws. FireWire, USB, Internal AES/EBU cards, etc... can all be better than each other depending on the cards design and implementation. I often think of it this way; If much of the music I listen to was worked on using a Lynx card then I am totally cool with using it in my music server. If I find something better I'll switch in the blink of an eye, but until such time I'm a Lynx fan.

 

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hmmm.. i guess what i'm wondering is all things being equal, wouldn't an external sound card be better for digital output vs an internal card, since the word clock is more isolated from the dirtiness of the compter environment? If lynx made a external version of their card which connected to the pc via a propreitary pci/pci-e card, wouldn't that be better than the internal version?

 

Especially considering that the rme externals can be had on the used market for cheaper than used lynx internal cards, it would seem to me to be a more preferable choice.. since people have commented on various forums that the internal rme's are comparable to the lynx cards.

 

 

 

[MontyW]

I'd be really interested to see scientific evidence that an internal card for digital output is disadvantaged because it has to work in a 'dirty' computer environment. I'm not saying this isn't the case, but I'd be interested to see. Are there any AES papers on this?

 

Monty