I considered the audiophile soundcard myself but ended up going with e-mu 1212m because it has both optic and coax spdif. they're made mainly for recording but I've heard they put out some of the best sound of any card, great price too. a bit concerned about the drivers though, I've heard of problems with winamp. I'm keeping my old audigy zs also because I don't think the e-mu can pass DD/DTS signals, 2-channel audio only. although the e-mu 404 has DD/DTS passthru so why not the 1212.