Hi guys. I need a simple sound card. My "new" server doesn't have an onboard sound card so I need something simple to play music to my stereo. What I'm looking for: - Cheap. It seems that most stand alone cards are expensive gadgets targetted at high-end audio. I just want decent quality audio playback. I have no use for Dolby Digital 5.1, optical outputs, etcetera. - Linux compatible. I run Debian/etch. - PCI or PCI-X. The latter would be better since by server has four 64-bit PCI-X slots and only one regular PCI. I doubt simple PCI-X soundcards exist though. - Preferably have tulip output. You know, the two red/yellow plugs that you use to hook your DVD to your amplifier in old-fashioned stereo. Any advice?

'Decent quality' and 'cheap' seem to be at odds with each other; I mean you could pick up a PCI sound card for £8 in the UK as to if it sounded any good however is another matter [wink]

Basically, if I was you I'd pick a price and then go and see what cards sit in that price bracket, maybe read a couple of online reviews of the cards if you can't decide directly [smile]

When it comes to output I'd be surprised if you found a sound card with that kind of output on it, they tend to only exist on 'break out boxes', however a cable to convert from phono to that type should be cheap enough to pick up.

To be honest i'd probably get something like this.

Dave

Quote: Original post by Dave
To be honest i'd probably get something like this.

Dave

I have a feeling that's what's in my media centre, and it works perfectly fine. No tulip output though...

I don't think i have ever seen a sound cad that has had that output on it. I believe that the top end ones with external boxes do though, but they are > £100.

Quote: Original post by phantom
'Decent quality' and 'cheap' seem to be at odds with each other; I mean you could pick up a PCI sound card for £8 in the UK as to if it sounded any good however is another matter [wink]

Yeah well, I meant decent as in good enough for normal use. I don't need the high quality professional stuff with > EUR 200 cards.

Quote: Original post by Dave
I don't think i have ever seen a sound cad that has had that output on it

I found two on newegg, but both of the very expensive variant. I guess I'll go with a simple one like you linked and then use a $2 jack to turn the headphone plug into tulip (RCA) plugs. It'll have to do until I can afford a stereo with S/PDIF input.

Quote: Original post by Sander

Quote: Original post by Dave
I don't think i have ever seen a sound cad that has had that output on it

I found two on newegg, but both of the very expensive variant. I guess I'll go with a simple one like you linked and then use a $2 jack to turn the headphone plug into tulip (RCA) plugs. It'll have to do until I can afford a stereo with S/PDIF input.

That's what i would do. Good Luck!

What you call "tulip" is actually known as "RCA connectors."

And the yellow is usually for composite video, whereas red and white are for stereo audio.

Why not use a USB audio interface? Those work on Linux these days, and the selection is better than for low-end PCI cards.

Because forwarding a PCI device from a Xen host system to a guest system is pretty stable in Xen. USB forwarding is not as stable (ofcourse, I could forward the entire PCI that the internal USB hub sits on, but that's overkill). I'm running my music server as a Xen guest.

Also, I don't like stuff sticking out of my server at the back, but that's just personal :-)

If Xen is a requirement, you might want to state that up front :-)