Need help guys...

I’m in the quest for improving the sound from my trusted laptop, T60. Currently using-

X-Fi Xtreme Audio Notebook
Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Notebook - Xtreme Fidelity sound at home or on the go

The Creative card I/O http://www.trustedreviews.com/images...0-IMG7130s.jpg

with a Beresford TC-7510 MKIII DAC
Home HIFI.

The choice of the creative card was purely for the SPDIF out. Now, few of my friends who are heavily into PC based HiFi, strongly recommending M-Audio Transit. M-AUDIO - Transit - Hi-Resolution Mobile Audio Interface

Transit I/O http://www.core-sound.com/transit/transit_callout.jpg

Having heard my system, they are sure that M-Audio can do much better with my DAC.

I have seen else where a similar discussion but here I'm looking only at a PCMIA type soundcard - which incidentally the Transit is not, but still serves the purpose if hardpushed at the expense of convenience. I know that the basic thing I should be doing is to get hold of one and hear it myself, but before that can be done, I thought of asking any one who has any experience around this. SP Road is not really a fun place to go, am sure the Banglurians might agree with that!

Any experience/comments?!

I've had a pathetic experience with M-Audio as an SPDIF source. Tried both the transit and audiophile USB. Both of them were mangling the signal inspite of using SPDIF and had very loose bass and were just plain irritating to work with because of poor drivers. Finally ended up selling both of them.

The creatives are much better SPDIF sources than the M-Audios. Stick with what you have and if you must buy another spdif source, get the EMU 0404 USB. I use the PCI version of the same and to say the least its the best sounding amongst all the digital transports I've tried bar a very high end Bluenote Stibbert II CD Player. Haven't tried the ESI Juli@ which seemingly is the purest SPDIF source on the PC alongwith the LynxTWO.

Unleash, I am not clear about your question. If you are question is that if you can have a better way to feed your Beresford, then I think Trends UD10.1 is considered one of the best audiophile USB transports. No personal experience, just hours spent on net. If the question is to better your Beresford DAC, then you definetly have a world out there as Beresford is only the entry level when it comes to standalone DAC's. I suppose the next step up would be for few hundred dollars - Zhaolu or Citypulse and close to $1000 dollars will be Channel Islands, Benchmark, Apogee and then even higher will be Bel Canto.

Modded Citypulse user here with TCXO clock, blackgate cap upgrade and LM4562 for the headphone out. Have tried the benchmark and the CIA VDA2. Didn't find either of those to be interesting compared to the citypulse sound. (slightly laid back with forward sounding midrange) If you wish, you could get your beresford over to my place and have a comparison.

Thanks guys, really appreciate your inputs.

reignofchaos, I dint know about these traits of M-Audio products, thanks for sharing your experiences. I'll definitely take a look into the E-MU and ESI UGM-96.

gopi, the Trends Audio one definitely looks impressive, thanks for sharing. Regarding the clarity in question, it was indeed about how to feed the Beresford better. The Beresford is an entry level DAC and it is my first ever experimentation with external DAC -must say- I'm thoughly impressed and believe every penny well spend! I know there are biggies out there in this field but am not into it that much.

Coming back to my original question, I'm looking out for a better way of SPDIF output from my laptop - preferably in the form of a PCMIA card.

Thanks again guys!

Don't think there are too many out there. The only thing I can think of is EMU 1616M Cardbus but its pretty damn expensive. The trends UD10.1 is probably a better transport.

Unleash, I have only little knowledge on how to feed these DAC's. I suppose no matter which method you go its better to have an internal clock again to reduce the jitter in your transport. So, I would rather say that spending that money on a better DAC will be more worth, thats my little 2 cents. The Citypulse that reignofchaos has with the clock upgrade seems quite impressive and I would recommend that you will get more benefit out of that. Also, as far as computer DAC vs these, its simply worth every penny. Did you get my PM on 2move.

reignofchaos, My knowledge were just based on reading. And that is always subjective How are you feeding your Citypulse?

Thru an EMU 0404 PCI sound card.