What is the cheapest soundcard with optical input?

[Guest Anonymous]

What is the cheapest soundcard with optical input?

[Guest Anonymous]

http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/misc/soun.../av515m_1.shtml

works awesomely.

[catchpole]

I was trying to find a good (cheap) solution to this for ages, and then a wonderful thing happened.

I found the Hercules Game Theatre XP 7.1

It's a PCI card with a break out box. It has proper 5 PIN midi sockets, optical and coaxial IN and OUT, line in (18 bit), 5 port USB Hub, game port, and 5.1 surroud out. it's also got a 1/4 inch MIC line in and headphone out, each with levels.

And its realy cheap. The only annoying this is that you cant run 2 inputs at the same time.. Would be nice to get multitrack by recoding from say digital and analog at the same time, but it just doesnt seem to support that.

The benefit of the break out box is that you dont have to bugger around behind the PC, and heavy cables wont break the sockets in the card. Also my last card was 24 bit, but as the signals end up going into the non-shelided card, you get a stack of noise anyway. Why have those extra bits if the signal has a high noise ratio?

christian@catchpole.net

http://catchpole.net/

http://us.hercules.com/

Data Transfer PCI 2.1 bus

Audio Processor Crystal CS4624

Audio Converters · 18-bit ADC/20-bit DAC

For high audio quality at sampling rates of up to 48kHz

Full Game and Audio Compatibility · Sensaura™ based 3D positional Audio with support:for Microsoft® DirectSound™ 3D, EAX™ 2.0, A3D™ 1.0, I3DL2™, MacroFX™, MultiDrive™, ZoomFX™, EnvironmentFX™

WavetableSynthesizer · 8MB General MIDI/GS™ sample set

· DLS support – GM™ (General MIDI)

· Yamaha Soft Synthesizer™ S-YXG50™

PCI Card Connectors · DB44 connector to rack

· Aux Line-In jack

· CD-In & 2 Aux-In.

Front Connectors · Headphone/7th & 8th channel output jack with volume control

· Line-In /Mic-In toggle jack with microphone gain control

· RCA Line-In jacks (left and right)

· Game port & 2 USB ports

Rear Connectors · Main stereo Line-Out jack

· Surround stereo Line-Out jack

· 6 gold-plated Line-Out RCA connectors:

(Main Left and Right/Surround Left and Right/Center/Subwoofer)

· 2 additional USB ports

· DB44 connector to PCI card

· Digital S/PDIF Input & Output (Coaxial & Optical)

· MIDI-In/MIDI-Out DIN connectors (MPU-401 compatible)

[Guest Anonymous]

Creative Extigy Soundcard, connects via USB...eliminates copy protection on CDs and DVDs. Can be removed from your computer and used with your DVD player to record CDs and DVDs (audio).

Available for about $80 @ www.ebay.com