Excuse me if I'm asking a question that has been asked many times before. I'd like to start from scratch and build a music server. My "audio-philic" goals are not extremely high. I'm more of a classical/jazz/acoustic/ensemble listener, and modest cost and a high level ("wife and daugher friendly") of robustness and convenience are important. I am willing to put together a dedicated system, and I am planning on re-ripping all of my CD's to lossless format. Beyond that, I expect to find a very good DAC solution, and I built a very good chipamp that I'm quite happy with. I don't plan to spend thousands of dollars, and I don't want to obsess to the level of cables costing more than a vacation, etc.. Here's my question: If I use a good quality external DAC, is it necessary to have a good quality sound card in the PC? I'm thinking that the external DAC replaces the sound card? Is that correct? Also, along that line, would a good quality external DAC be very much better than an excellent sound card (ASUS Xonar STX, for example)? I'm inclined to think that a solution somewhat like the C.A.P.S. project, with the concession of
a rotating hard drive to improve capacity, would probably meet my needs nicely. Any words of wisdom will be appreciated!
