2 soundcards in one computer. One for gaming. One for music

[Coolbreeze]

Hello all. Currently in my rig I have a Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatality Champion Series sound card, that includes the I/O Drive. However I'm very interested in the Asus Xonar Essence STX PCIx soundcard. The computer speakers that I'm using are the Klipsch Promedia Ultra 5.1 Multimedia speakers. I had the subwoofer amp modified with cooling fans due the the high incidence of subwoofer amp failure due to excessive heat. The speakers only support a sound card with the Green, Orange, Black three pin connection (No SPDIF) and that's fine for gaming however I also want the best audiophile sound card as well and I think that the Asus Xonar Essence STX is it. When connected to my home theater receiver using it's SPDIF output . So I need to know if it is possible to run two sound cards in one computer, one at a time. For instance while gaming I'll use the Sound Blaster and then when I want to listen to music I think that I should be able to go to the volume mixer in Windows 7 and switch default devices to change sound cards. So what I need to know is whether or not this is possible using Windows 7. I don't think that the drivers for the 2 sound cards will interfere with each other or cause any IRQ conflicts.
Your prompt replies will be appreciated.

[Scubar]

If your using SPDIF then there is absolutely no point in buying the STX as the receiver for your home theater will be doing the DAC ( Digital to Analogue Conversion )

The STX card is designed purely for people with high end headphones who want to experience high fidelity sound output directly from the soundcard.

Use the SPDIF on your current soundcard to output to your Receiver.

[Donnie27]

Yes you can do it but I 2nd what was posted in Post #2, QFT! I'll just add that if you're not using the card for Analog purposes, you're wasting money. By Analog I mean Headphones and analog RCA Stereo out.

[zanzabar]

2 cards will work, and if u have a proper hdmi port (on the card or with an adapter) on your graphics card and run hdmi to the receiver or your onboard should have optical. and since its digital out it dose not matter much how u get it out as scubar said

[[DANGERDAN]]

You might want to look into a external DAC for higher quality output for your receiver, if your output is using the analog out of the sound card you may benefit in using the xonar stx for higher quality power output but as far as spdif is concerned look for some dedicated external DAC'S for eg cambridge dacmagic...