Chaintech AV-710, best budget stereo soundcard?

[AudioSound]

Mini-Review
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=75454

Setup Guide
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=75655

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=364771

As you all can see, this card is quite cheap and is a favourite at head-fi and avsforum. It comes with the Wolfson WM8728 24bit 192Khz DAC. It seems to even outperform those A2/A2ZS cards in sound quality easily according to the head-fi forums. So I'm wondering if it will be a good choice for a soundcard?

[Todd The Kiwi]

wow man that card looks nice, what a front end!
so much configuration, sweeeet :silly:
i have an M-AUDIO AUDIOPHILE 2496 (http://www.digit-life.com/articles/maudioaudiophile/) it's not new but i think it was/is fairly good
i paid more than a hundred bucks for it though! new zealand dollars that is
at the moment $100 NZ = $71 US i paid $450 NZ = $322 US :skull:

[Artie]

I'll let you know shortly. I happen to know that I'm getting one for Christmas. :)

[Tropics]

any news on that? i hate my audigy and think about buying a new card ... but have no idea which one :cyclops:

[Todd The Kiwi]

m-audio make good cards, ask (almost) anyone. :biggrin:

[Roj]

As you all can see, this card is quite cheap and is a favourite at head-fi and avsforum. It comes with the Wolfson WM8728 24bit 192Khz DAC. It seems to even outperform those A2/A2ZS cards in sound quality easily according to the head-fi forums. So I'm wondering if it will be a good choice for a soundcard?I've heard of this beast and those Wolfson DACs are NICE. I'm not even remotely surprised that the Chaintech easily outperforms the CL junk - I just had an interesting go-around with someone on another forum who just simply didn't want to see that point. I've heard the CL cards in question (I own an ENVY24-based M-Audio Revolution 7.1) and regardless of what is said on the web by the *reviewer pundits*, they can't match up to **ANY** decent ENVY24-based card.

At that price point and with those DACs, it's hard to go wrong - grab it.

[AudioSound]

Got the AV-710. The AV-710 is really suprisingly good for $25. Although it's only limited to stereo output with the Wolfson WM8728 stereo DAC on the last output jack nearest to the optical out. The first 1-6 channels are using the VIA VT1616 AC97 codec's DAC, and it's your typical onboard audio sound stuff, basically you don't want to listen to it. This is really a sweet budget purchase if you only need a stereo soundcard with a good DAC.