Advice needed for PCI soundcard

I used an M-Audio Revolution 7.1 card that could output Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1. Even with that card, it is not going to be able to send 7.1 DTS-MA and Dolby TruHD. That is a limitation of spdif hardware interconnects.

I just looked at a few user reviews for your card at it seems like you are correct, it cannot pass digital multichannel over the spdif jack. Which is extremely bizarre. What playback software were you trying to use to make this work? I remember having a hard time getting the M-Audio to bitstream Dolby Digital and DTS, but I was very new to all of this at the time. A year or so later I bought a new motherboard with toslink out.

As for future proofing, that will come via your video card. All the newer ones are hdmi and can send the hd audio out right with the video.

Asus Xonar HDAV used to come in a PCI slot config. It had an optical/coax SPDIF output (which I am almost sure does 5.1) along with an HDMI output. That will future proof your audio, as much as a discontinued PCI card can anyway.

As stated above the future (and current for that matter) of HTPC audio is either through a video card or onboard video over HDMI.

Discrete soundcards have essentially gone the way of the Carburetor

Xonar STX in my gaming box.

Get the Xonar ST for PCI.

Htpc + quality sound card + quality amplification = av nirvana.

10 years from now av receivers will have gone the way of the dodo. ;-)

Read through the info at the link for what it states. It all comes down to what you are going to be using it for, and what your expectations are, along with how deep your wallet is.

The Xmeridian will easily pass 5.1 audio through its digital optical connection. There's an adapter to turn that into a coaxial connection.

In fact, if all you need is 5.1 passthrough, there are many cheaper ways to achieve this. The Xmeridian is geared to high quality analog conversion of digital signals, to be fed directly to amplification. There are many other cheaper cards that do what you're looking for. In fact, there are many motherboards that allow 5.1 pass through.