Sound Card Help

dmosc · Joined: Jun 23, 2003 Posts: 298

I'm running into a bit of a jam here and thought I might ask the knowledgeable folks here at electro-music.com for some advice.

See, I have your standard 5.1 computer setup and a SoundBlaster (audigy I think) which I use. My speakers don't support a digital in so I send over 3 stereo plugs. Anyway, that's not the problem but figured you'd need the info.

My problem is with the input. I'm getting static on it and I'm just sick of it. I use my AUX input for my PS3's sound output so it's also frustrating playing things in stereo instead of 5.1. Basically, I'm looking for a new sound card that has an optical input (the PS3 only supports optical out for what I'm looking for) AND can play it back in near-realtime. I can handle 100ms or so of delay but more than that starts getting annoying. Many of them seem to say "for recording only" even when they have these inputs which is not going to cut it. I was hoping to spend <$50 but I am curious what I'd have to put down to get this going correctly.

I'm kind of stuck because of the decoding part. I need something that can decode the optical input in realtime and ship it out to my speakers (again, analog only).

OS is winXP 32-bit... PCI-E 1x and PCI slots available with or without the old sound card...