cheap but good sound card

[NiHaoMike]

I'm looking for a cheap but good sound card to use as a S/PDIF input device. I'm looking for one that supports 24bit/192kHz S/PDIF in, preferably supporting both fiber and coax input (I only plan to use one at a time), and can be either USB or PCIe. Good ALSA support is a must, but good analog performance is merely a bonus.

[Lightages]

Creative X-Fi HD for USB, or X-Fi Extreme for PCIE.

I also just found this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SEDNA-PCI-7-1-Channel-Sound-Card-with-Optical-SPDIF-Input-and-Output-/191548444449?hash=item2c992d4f21

[NiHaoMike]

Can't use regular PCI since the only slot on my motherboard is taken.

[Lightages]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Creative-Sound-Blaster-X-FI-Xtreme-7-1-Audio-Card-PCI-E-OPTICAL-SPDIF-HD-PC-/251814756313?hash=item3aa1543fd9

[Someone]

Whats the intended application? I'm not sure the Creative cards allow bit perfect IO?

[NiHaoMike]

Connect the PC to a digitizer. Those digitizers might not necessarily be designed with audio in mind - they could be DC coupled. The applications are quite diverse, ranging from audio quality measurements (as an affordable alternative to an audio band spectrum analyzer) to a general purpose high resolution "PC scope". The fiber link is especially interesting due to the extremely good isolation it provides.

[Someone]

You might want to consider ADAT, since it uses the same cheap toslink connections but is only used in system synchronous designs so is much easier to go through transparently. Otherwise its back to the "professional" brands of audio interfaces to look for one with wordclock IO on a PCIe card, which with SPDIF puts it in a weird overlap of technology but they do exist.

Cheap wont come into it, but if you go cheap then you'll almost certainly end up with a sample rate convertor hidden in the path somewhere.

[BloodyCactus]

Id stay well clear of creative shit. Get an asus xonar dx. I run my optical out to my external DAC+AMP. full linux  support etc. very nice cards, cheap.

[NiHaoMike]

I'm only really interested in S/PDIF input since my motherboard, like almost all motherboards made in the last few years, already has S/PDIF output.

[BloodyCactus]

sorry, didnt realise you needed spdif IN. pretty much cuts out the low end chinese stuff.

i beleive the ht omega fenix (100$ on newegg) does spdif inputs. it uses the cmedia 8828. I think the current linux kernel supports it, not sure youd need to do some more checking.

[NiHaoMike]

It's looking more and more like a DIY USB 2.0 solution might be the way to go, with the added benefit of being able to extend it beyond 24/192 should the need arise. S/PDIF is only specified to 24/192 and thus off the shelf receivers are not available for anything higher, but something like (differential) I2S over CAT5 might work out quite well.

BTW, some exotic audio hardware can do as high as 32/384. While that's unlikely to provide any benefit over 24/192 for ordinary audio applications, I suppose it could come in handy for DIY sonar and SDR applications.