SKYLINEGTRVS

Thanks for the welcome, is there a good article on how DAC's work? I know that they convert digital signal to analog, but i guess Im confused on analog out vs digital out like via TOSLINK, which is how i have it setup now. Could you list some other things/ steer me in the right direction on what other tweaking could be done with my comp? Right now my playback is from foobar2000.

I just stumbled onto this forum and was reading through some posts and thought it would be easier if i just asked the questions i need answered. I am sorry if you guys have answered these question before, and also if i seem like a noob. Here's my setup. I am currently using a creative soundblaster external soundcard to send audio to my home theater receiver(Onkyo 608)from my computer. My speakers are as follows, Center- Energy CC-10, Fronts-Energy RC-10, Rears- AcousticResearch 308 HO, Sub-Elemental Designs A5s-300. I have about 300gb of FLAC music that I currently listen to avidly, mostly metal, rock, DnB, and dubstep. Anyways i guess my current DAC is the soundblaster card, but i dont know if it actually counts, but I was looking into upgrading it since I have been upgrading my speakers, I used to have logitech z5500s before. So my question is what DAC would you recommend, if any? I guess my budget would be sub-$500. Any help would be appreciated and any knowledge would be appreciated as well. Thanks for reading