Oh just finishing listening to the whole show. I use something that sort of does the effects, but would not be as convenient as what you are proposing using. For this I am using an Audigy 2 and the KX Project 3rd party drivers. Using this setup requires a PCI slot on your motherboard, as well as the card. I think in theory you can use it for some inline DSP using sources and outputs.
I have different dsp layouts you can load, and one had a compressor that basically made a TV all the same volume no matter what was going on with it so it would not be annoying at one point.