In my previous post, I was trying to find out if it was worth investing in a sound card (to an external DAC) to get better sound vs getting it out of the USB to the DAC (if the DAC permitted - such as the Benchmark USB). This question may have been asked many times before and if so, my apologies for bringing it up again.
In my search, I found an answer from this article in positive-feedback
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue22/nugent.htm
If I read the article correctly, the author claims that
"PCI add-in cards have the disadvantage that they utilize the power supply of the PCI bus of the computer. This power supply is typically quite noisy, so it is difficult to get high-quality output from these cards. They are also limited in form-factor and cooling capacity. There are severe interconnect length limitations when either S/PDIF or analog outputs are used, so this places the computer very close to the audio system. AC power of the computer can also easily cause hum in an audio system. I generally advise against using add-in audio cards in favor of external converters. External converters generally interface with the computer using WI-FI wireless, USB, or Firewire, and have their own power supplies..."
so is he claiming that pci sound cards are not reliable? or have I mis-read the article?
