Best sound card to connect to a stereo receiver?

[eflat]

I am looking for a sound card that is designed to connect to a reveiver through real full size RCA jacks. Are there are designed for this? All the ones I am finding require an expensive daughter card and come with a million features that I don't really need.

 

[Pariah]

What's wrong with using a $10 1/8th to RCA cable?

 

[GustySoul]

The Hercules Game Theater XP (GTXP) includes a break-out box with standard RCA plugs for all 5.1 channels. The card does have a whole lot of features, but it's not so expensive at ~$85 new. (The break out box is part of the sound card, not a separate purchase.)

Most sound cards usually only have 1/8 stereo mini-plugs. However, Radio Shack often sells 1/8 stereo -> dual mono RCA cables pretty inexpensively.

Hope that helps,
obispo21

 

[eflat]

My experience with 1/8th to RCA jacks is that it just doesn't work. I've tried it on various sound cards and all I get is output that is barely audible and plagued with static.

I'll have to look into that Hercules Game Theatre.

 

[Audioguru]

dual rca 2 stereo mini`s as i like to call them are usable to an extent, however having used the Game theater extensively i would recomend it 110%. Its perfect for what you need. And i was actually running a similer setup with mine.

 

[Woody419]

There are dozens of break out boxes to solve your problem, here is a list of 56 breakout boxes to check out.

The Xitel looked promising, but a review at epinions said it has mediocre signal to noise ratio.

I haven't seen any reviews on the Onkyo UD-5, this looks like it converts the digital USB signal to toslink which then relies on your digital receiver or 5.1 DSP box to decode. I plug my home theater DVD into a Technics SH-AC500D for killer sound, and the Technics has a toslink input. You can pick one up on eBay for pretty cheap.

I agree that the mini jacks are just junk, good luck on your quest.

 

[thomsbrain]

Probably something digital would be the best. For analog, I love my Echo Audio Darla24 card. It has a breakout box with a shielded cable that's thicker than my thumb, 4 sets of stereo outputs, 1 set of stereo inputs, 24 bit/96kHz A/D and D/A, and supports directsound. It's really intended for digital audio recording and editing, but it makes a killer everyday soundcard too. the sound is as clean as it gets in computer audio, and it has tons and tons of headroom for both input and output.
edit: i should mention it ran me around $300 on sale. 😉

 

[Howard]

I'd say something with TOSLink or RCA S/P-DIF. Those only handle PCM or encoded surround, but since it's a stereo receiver, there shouldn't be a problem.

Does the receiver handle digital/optical?

If not, the adapter method is probably cheapest.