AV-710 vs X-Fi XM

I currently have a Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music, but have heard much about the Chaintech AV-710 and its superb Wolfson DAC and its high playback quality. I have an Onkyo TX-8011 stereo receiver and Im wondering which would be the better soundcard to run to the receiver. I will be running Polk M10 bookshelf speakers with this setup. Im not as much of a gamer as I used to be, which is one reason why Im opting to buy an AV-710 and sell my X-Fi. Is the Wolfson DAC better than the X-Fi XM DAC?

No. That wolf dac is used only when played in 2.1. The wolf dac will be by-passed when using the digital out on AV-710.

I planned on running the Wolfson to the receiver via a dual RCA to 1/8" adaptor.

Vengance_01 said:

No. That wolf dac is used only when played in 2.1. The wolf dac will be by-passed when using the digital out on AV-710.

Click to expand...

That receiver doesn't have digital in. Although bit-perfect digital passthrough is a great feature on the AV-710 it won't be utilized on this setup. Sir Barton, you have the right idea, upon comparing the AV-710 to the Audigy2, the AV-710 is clearly superior, but the X-Fi is pretty good itself though I can't provide a comparison because I've heard the X-Fi only through different speakers. I would just save the trouble and run the X-Fi in audio creation mode and crystallizer off through to the receiver.

Well...I hooked it all up yesterday and it sounds spectacular. I plan on buying a powered subwoofer within the next month to get the lows that Im missing. Does anybody have any recommendations on a sub in the $200 price range?

EDIT: This keeps getting better and better as far as the sound quality goes. Like Pr|m3 said above, I enabled content creation mode, but I also went and enabled bit-matched playback. Im using Foobar as my audio player with the EQ, Advanced Limiter, and SSRC Resampler running at 24-bit 96KHz....sounds kick *** I must say .

Glad you're enjoying the setup. For subs, Velodyne are known to make great subs, you can also match your bookshelfs with a Polk sub, and this is the one I've been eye-ing:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=300-635

Wow that looks like a great sub. I know Dayton has earned a good name in the DIY department and the price on that is great. Im also liking the nice low frequency its able to attain.