[halcyon]

Computer peripherals maker EVGA pre-announced a new discrete (PCIe) sound card at CES 2016:

The following is from their marketing material for the discrete internal sound card:

- State of the art audio fidelity
- True analog engineering for lifelike audio reproduction
- 130dB+ SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio)
- Available in PCI Express x1 add on card or external USB solution

Sound chip, opamps, DAC, output specs all are unknown. Doesn't look like a multi-channel analog-out sound card, and probably they'll end up using some of the Cmedia chips (like CM8888 on PowerColor), but who knows.

This is meant for gamers/audio-enthusiasts, so they are not trying to low ball by putting out the cheapest card. Who knows. The proof is in the pudding.

In addition they are working on an external DAC/headphpne amp with Audio Note (yeah!), but it's at prototype stage at this point. More at:

http://hexus.net/tv/show/2016/01/EVGA_teams_up_with_Audio_Note_to_improve_PC_sound

 

[mindbomb]

line out so you can use your own amp is a really nice feature. Two headphone amps for balanced output. Spdif out if you want to use your own dac. Hopefully it will come with hardware dolby headphone. I think that's the only feature that distinguishes the soundcards from other dacs, the headphone surround sound dsps.