audiotrack MAYA or Asus Xonar ?

[portuguesedude]

hello,

 

i was looking to acquire a USB sound card for my laptop, since i dont have pcmcia slot.

I found on ebay the audiotrack Maya sound card, and made a search on computeraudiophile for infos, search had no results. im also atracted with creative sound blaster x-fi surround pro option, since it says on specs it has a 5.1 chanels outputs.

 

Since i dont have currently pc speakers, i was thinking about conecting the sound card to an old AV receiver + speakers.

I have been using the AV receiver to play music [ and whacht mkv´s ] using an asus media player. However sound fidelity on my mp3 files it not very enjoying experience.

I assume i will gain some audio fidelity with the above described setup right ? If i acquire the external sound card, the software digital audio processing made, is it transmited to the AV receiver trought digital out conection ?

 

thanks for your insights !

 

so much to read [ learn ] on this forum !

[mwheelerk]

One of the first biggest differences for me in sound quality was moving away from lossy compressed files (mp3) to a lossless file (FLAC, ALAC). The second big step was to move to an external DAC.

 

If you make a digital connection between the two devices you will be using the DAC within your AVR.

[portuguesedude]

ouch !!!

 

real newbie

I always believed that on the scheme :

element 1 - pc source

element 2 - external sound card with his Digital Signal Processing specs [ USB hook ]

element 3 - AV receiver ( with DTS, dolby decoding ) and signal to noise gain of 100db [ toslink hook ]

element 4 - speakers

 

there would be a gain on fidelity on element 2 using source 1 to send to the element 3.

That would explain why so many output exists on external soundcar´s.

 

Time to get to basics - Computer Audio Basics | Peachtree Audio

 

mwheelerk , arent you using the m4a format ?

[mwheelerk]

ouch !!!

 

real newbie

I always believed that on the scheme :

element 1 - pc source

element 2 - external sound card with his Digital Signal Processing specs [ USB hook ]

element 3 - AV receiver ( with DTS, dolby decoding ) and signal to noise gain of 100db [ toslink hook ]

element 4 - speakers

 

there would be a gain on fidelity on element 2 using source 1 to send to the element 3.

That would explain why so many output exists on external soundcar´s.

 

Time to get to basics - Computer Audio Basics | Peachtree Audio

 

mwheelerk , arent you using the m4a format ?

 

Yes, I use AIFF files.

 

I was not trying to be critical in anyway just offering my experience and opinion.

 

also I may have misunderstood your point of digital connection thinking it was SPDIF or Toslink.

[portuguesedude]

oh no problem , no offense taken !