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How To Add Optical Digital Audio Output to HP Desktop?
Hello, everyone. A friend is using a refurbished HP/Compaq DC7900 Small Form Factor desktop PC. The rear panel has the usual audio line-out stereo mini-jack (10K-ohms, 90dB signal-to-noise ratio) and a VGA monitor output. The cpu is an Intel Core2Duo E8400 3.0GHz, and RAM is 2 x 2GB DDR2-800 (total 4GB).
He's using the PC in his modest home music studio. Input is from a small mixer which he uses for voice, or keyboard and guitar. For monitors he has a pair of Klipsch R-15PM powered speakers which have several input options including RCA line-in jacks that he's currently using. Optical digital, coax digital, and USB inputs are also available.
The speakers are placed a few feet away from his keyboard/mixer and PC. They are connected to the line-out jacks on the PC via a 16-foot mini-jack-to-2xRCA cable. It works OK, and there's no hum or interference problem.
The resulting sound quality is OK but it could be better if he could connect the speakers via optical digital cable (the Klipsch speakers have a decent quality DAC built-in, of course).
So, here's the question. While keeping cost to a minimum is there an add-in sound card with optical output jack that would give the desired improvement? It would need to have a half-height/low profile bracket to fit in the PCI-e X1 slot of the motherboard.