M-Audio Sonica Theater @ $120 acceptable to the audiophiles? I may get this myself if my nForce sound hardware doesn't start behaving soon.

Well, I've never been a big fan of USB audio solutions. I much prefer a PCI based solution with an seperate DAC...but of course this will cost more...

I use an Audiophile 2496 PCI card hooked up to a Art DI/O DAC.

If you want to use USB though, I would suggest the original Sonica (not the theatre model) as it uses a superior chip. The extra features of the Sonica Theater are not much use IMO, unless you really need 5.1/7.1 sound for DVDs (useless for redbook audio cds and MP3s though).

The original Sonica has been discontinued, but you can still find being sold. The Transit is also available, and very similar to the Sonica (probably indistiguishable in sound for most people), and better sounding than the Sonica Theater.

But a better USB solution is the Audiophile USB. It sounds noticable better than the Sonica, and has more options. It supports coax digital in/out (I prefer coax over tos-link) and has RCA connectors rather than the poor mini jacks used in the Sonica line. It has MIDI too, but that's probably not much use to people here.

I was wrong, the IceQ II DOES evacuate the heat. I must have been confused while reading a review and got the wrong impression.

Cool, I forgot about my post and you all have contributed greatly to it. It is now buying time. I have decided to spend less money on the audio card, because it is not that important to me.

Please let me know if all of these parts are compatible. In addition, I don't know where to get the parts with a ? before them (if you know where, please let me know).

Thanks.

Here is what I have come up with:
I ordered the Dell FP1901 (19" LCD) Today (15% off!!)

Athlon 64 3800+ Socket 939
Asus A8V Deluxe
2 x 512 MB Corsair XMS PC3200 (2-3-3-6 timing)
Samsung 160GB SP1614C SATA (w/ NIDEC motor) or 74GB Raptor if I can't find one with the NIDEC motor
NEC 2510A DVD-RW/CD-RW
Audigy2 ZS Platinum
Chaintech nVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra (sold out at newegg.com)
Zalman CNPS7000-Cu
Arctic Silver 5 (do I need 12 grams or 5 grams?)
?Seasonic Silencer 500 SS-400AGX (don't know where to buy)
?Ever Case 4252 (don't know where to buy)
2 x 120mm Evercool Aluminum Fans
Belkin ErgoBoard Keyboard (black)
Logitech MX 510 Optical Mouse
Alsp DF354H068F Floppy Drive
Stretch Magic 1.8mm for suspension

Thanks,

thunkerdo