OT: Soundcards vs onboard sound
Many apologies, this is OT but this forum is alive and kickin' with enthusiastic people, whereas the proper places to ask are a bit moribund.
I bought my Xonar D2/PM a few years ago and have loved it ever since.
Now, though, I've been getting into Blurays. My music collection is still all flac and unaffected, but decoding DTS/MA or TrueHD are things the Xonar can't do.
How am I best to arrange things? The onboard sound chips are at least a little better now, and Intel in particular seem to be pushing the quality of their audio.
I'm quite happy with a stereo or a stereo + centre system, and have some nice Dittons and an old Yamaha amp, and aren't so interested in surround for the time being, so I need something that will downmix and do a good job of it. Also, I can't afford a decent receiver.
Is my beloved Xonar obsolete? The whole PCI bus is rapidly disappearing, and, on Intel systems at least, take up valuable PCIe lanes.
The Xonar driver situation hasn't changed much either it seems, some very dedicated and very talented people giving us drivers. But not Asus.
So, I'm wondering if there'd be any tangible benefit in using the Xonar? I know even on the crappy machine I'm writing this on that a plain old Audigy made a big difference.
Apologies again for being OT
Rob