S/PDIF connection on SB cards

[blahblah99]

I was just looking at the sb cards (live series) and noticed that it has an on-board s/pdif connector. Now if I were to design an external digital to analog converter using the burr-brown's 24-bit DACs to convert those s/pdif signals, how much better would it sound over the built in dac on the sound card? The DAC I'm probably going to use is the PCM1704 (24-bit sign-magnitude converter).

 

[Killbat]

As far as I know, the Live!s only deal with 16bit audio data. The new Audigy's can do 24bit.
I doubt you'd get much better sound for your troubles. In the design of a high-end sound card, the DAC isn't something you overlook.

 

[blahblah99]

I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out.. if the SB cards use 16-bit audio throughout its system, or does the least 8-bits gets chopped off when it passes through the DAC.... now if there's 24-bits at the S/PDIF, IM IN BUSINESS!

 

[Killbat]

Creative lists the Live!'s maximum playback depth as 16bit. I don't think you'll get 24bit out of it, it probably handles data at 16bit.