Asus Essence or external DAC for swan m200mkIII

[Guest ace ventura]

I have the Swan M200MKIIIs and I have them hooked up to a 8in HSU sub with a Y cable from the left ch audio out from my pc, one feeding into the sub the other the left input on the swans with the right ch going directly into the swans. The only way I have found to match the sub with the speakers is to turn the volume up on the Swans to max and then adjust the sub volume to balance them out, now the only way to control the volume is through windows, it would be nice if the Swans had an option for a sub out so i could use the external volume but oh well. Let me know if you have a better way to use a sub with the swans if my above configuration isn't optimal.

 

Anyway I am looking for better sound quality than on board audio and I am wondering if I should go with an Asus Xonar Essence, a u-DAC-2, a Pure Piper A-1, or something else entirely, budget would be around $200-300. External DAC or the Asus?

 

Most of what I listen to are apple lossless files with some that were converted to wma lossless for my windows media center HTPC that goes into my denon 4308 with B&W 683's (iphone,ipod user so i like to have my music on the go, i know using itunes to listen to music probably isn't optimal, i use MCE on the HTPC)

 

If you need any more info just let me know. I'm up for suggestions for improving audio quality.

 

Thanks.