Have anyone seen it sold online in Taiwan?
It is cheap but has a good codec: WolfsonAudio 24-bit, 96kHz
- Linux supported audio controller (Via Envy24HT)
Nice for HiFi playback.
Przemek
I haven’t seen it for sale. For the price it looks like it would be fine for straightforward music listening, but there are no latency specs. A quick look at a couple of other reviews and one complained that the latency was up to 2 seconds, which is next to unusable if you are a musician.
I would count myself more as an audiophile (on a shoestring budget 
) than a musician.
From that point of view the sound card is worth only as much as the codec used.
Latency in not so important but 2 sec? I would say it is a driver bug or maxed out CPU.
The idea is to use the the PC as an audio data storage device (transport) with a good soundcard (DAC) to get quality sound.
There are some other choices but either more expensive or with no Linux support:
E-MU 1212M (no Linux driver, cheap semi-pro with very good codec)
Lynx L22 (expensive US $800, professional card)
You can get other boards with the Envy24HT chipset in Taiwan, either generics or a Creative Audigy Gamer. Other brands are a big harder to find. I bought an M-Audio Revolution 7.1 which is also based on this chipset, but I bought it in the US. I talk about it a bit in this other sound card thread:
[forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.ph … 463#135463](Do I Really Need A Good Sound Card?
The main differences between the boards will be the Analog circuitry which can add noise and hum, and the quality of the drivers. If you are using the Linux drivers then the driver variation is not an issue…
As for sound delay, I’ve found that that only happens when you turn on advanced features that process the audio. The two main ones on the M-Audio boards are one that convert stereo to full surround, and another which simulates thumping bass on cheaper speakers that don’t handle bass well. Personally I don’t like those modes much, and regular unprocessed sound has no delay at all. Also the delay is much more modest than 2 seconds unless you have a very slow or heavily loaded system. The latter will be a concern for gamers as you don’t want your audio effects delayed when killing bad guys. Many advanced games generate full surround without needing to simulate it in the sound driver, so you shouldn’t need that feature.
M-Audio makes some good stuff but what I’m really after is a sound quality more than specific controller or number of channels so it would be rather Audiophile 2496.
Chaintech is just a cheapo with a good codec .
The VIA Envy is good choice for me because of available Linux support.
BTW what I’m thinking of is a small factor PC used as a audio/video playback device (something like Shuttle XPC), possibly DVR running Freevo
I am in the process of building an HTPC as well, and I would love to make it LINUX based. That FREEVO software looks great. I have never made a Linux based system and was thinking of using WINDOWS MCE but maybe this would be a better a choice. When will you arrive in Taiwan?
I’m in Taiwan for like … three years now
What exactly HTPC do you have in mind?
Well, Linux is where all the fun is: MythTV
mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythFeatures
[quote]Support for multiple tuner cards and multiple simultaneous recordings.
Distributed architecture allowing multiple recording machines and multiple playback machines on the same network, completely transparent to the user.
[/quote]
One word of caution I have about Linux stuff is that you are going to learn a lot trying to install it. If it is good or bad I would leave for you to decide.
This is what makes it a fun for me
One thing I foresee is gonna be interesting to hack is the remote control (www.lirc.org ?)