if that is all it took for a computer to play music that would be great...

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Sound quality has nothing to do with CPU cycles (except when the sound stops if your computer is too busy doing something else). CD's sound better than MP3's simply because they have more information in them.
It has been my experience that the biggest problem with using PC's for audio playback was all the electrical interference going on inside the machine impacting the audio out. It would seem to me though if you can keep the signal in the digital domain, and decode that digital signal in the receiver then you should have a good clean signal.

perhaps, at least a lot more sound cards have digital outs now. mine does and it is integrated into the mb. which im sure is probably why i get a little lag sometimes when listening to mp3s and while doing whatever else i may be doing on the computer. but the integrated sc is better than the other one i have, and i dont critically listen via this comp, so screw it, im getting a sc till this integrated one breaks.

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This post has been brought to you by curegeorg, thanks for reading.