[NewMexiCat]

Anyone know of a soundcard that will do this and is fairly high quality?


I want it for my HTPC jukebox: Digital to my main HT is preferred, but I need analog out to pass through Zone 2 of my B&K receiver for whole house audio.


I'd like to stick with an M-Audio card, but in my research I can't find one that will output digital and analog simultaneously.


Any recommendations will be appreciated.

 

[KaiZas]

Well, not actually a card, rather an entire motherboard.


The nVidia NForce chipset is capable of this. I've had an Asus board with the first nForce chip. (Ofcourse, you need to get a motherboard that has the nVidia APU onboard, nog some crappy AC97 sollution). You get a Dolby Digital AC3 signal through your SPDIF and the 6 analoge channels through the normal connections at the same time.


Considering the nForce2 board is the fastest one out there today and the fact that de nVidia APU has the lowest processor load in the soundcard business, it's not such a bad product.


Btw, if you want it cheap, Asus has an nForce 1 board with the nVidia APU for about $80. It's the A7N266-VM. It's micro-atx, but that shouldn't be a problem because most of what you need (like vga (gf2mx), lan and audio) is on-board.