In that situation I'd probably run a digital output (coax S/PDIF) from the 2496 to the 990. The card may have a nice D>A converter, but it's on the PCI card in a PC... a very noisy environment that results in an analog signal that's never all that great.

USB would work too, though as gonk said, you'll be limited to PCM stereo only, and I thought 16-bit only as well. gonk - can you confirm or correct that? If you have FLAC24 files (24-bit) you'll want to play them in all their 24-bit glory, and the S/PDIF connection will do that just fine. Plus, the 990's D>A converter is nothing to sneeze at.

- Jason