A friend of mine bought a new sound card, Club 3D Theatron Agrippa DTS 7.1 for 69 €, which blow me away...it has the AK4396, a killer Dac from asahi-kasei.
I think that's should be my next comp upgrade.

Home theater for your computer? What's that about?

Bob

Most of the sound cards nowadays allow us to choose between two or more speakers. My actual sound card is a X-Fi 5.1 from Creative. Of course, i use it only two channel mode, but my kids have a set of 5 small speakers plus the subwoofer also from Creative and plug them only for games.
The reason to choose the Club 3D Theatron Agrippa DTS 7.1 is the AK4396 dac - which is awesome. The other sound cards from Club 3D doesn't use this dac.

Clint, how does the card compare to the X-Fi soundwise? How does it sound in 2 channel mode with lossless playback?

Jimmy

Hey Jimmy
Well, let me tell you that is the best sound card I ever listen to.
Very detail, great soundstage & imageing and naturalness plus very controlled and wheighty bass, and the dynamics are smashing...
IMHO, it's a better card than my X-Fi.
And yes, you could use it only in 2 channel mode with lossless playback.
Just one more thing. The card needs a long break in period before you can judge it`s sound.

Talking about sound cards...Something about Creative X-Fi soundcards:

Creative spent money on a new DSP and architecture. With its 400MHz core speed, 51 million transistors and 10,000 MIPS, the X-Fi, according to Creative, has 24 times the power of an Audigy 2 ZS and equals the power of a 3.4GHz general purpose CPU.

Creative build the X-Fi into three distinct PCBs, with four versions of the card available at retail:
The basic X-Fi XtremeMusic features a multichannel 24-bit Cirrus Logic DAC, a Wolfson 24-bit ADC, and 2MB of “XRAM.”
The X-Fi Platinum adds a bay adapter to the XtremeMusic.
The Fatal1ty FPS uses the same DACs as the XtremeMusic but ups the XRAM to 64MB and gives you a status LED.
All three can hit 109dB SNR, which is just a tick better than the 2 ZS’ 108dB. The Elite Pro can hit 116dB thanks to its higher-end AKM dac.
What’s XRAM for? They say, it act as a local audio buffer eventually...

One more thing, X-Fi is the first card to combine technology from Aureal, Sensaura, and Creative. As you’d expect with that kind of pedigree, it sounds pretty fantastic.

RMAA 5.5 SoundBlaster Testing Methodology from Creative

X-fi Series Testing Methodology

Audigy 2 ZS Series Testing Methodology

Audigy1 Setup Guide

RMAA 5.5

A cheap and simple option from Behringer. No drivers or other setting changes required either.
It has a digital out option, so you could continue to use your favourite dac, or not...

http://www.behringer.com/UCA202/