Man you don't like SB do you?
If you use the spdif or optical out function, it doesn't make a difference on sound quality. They all sound the same. Your digital processor (usually your DD receiver) is doing the work, not the sound card. ItÂ’s is merely sending the digital data to the processor.
Another thing. Those world best cd players are a waste of money. they sound every bit as good as any good 24 (120+ Signal to Noise Ratio) bit cd player and to 90% of the world, they sound as good as any 16bit (90=S/N ratio) cd player. If you got Coaxial or Optical out on a cd player (16 or 24 bit) and you have a 24 bit DD receiver, There is no difference in sound either.
A dog could probably hear the difference, but not us. Nobody I mean nobody that human can tell the difference in something that has a s/n of 125-130 db from something that has 115-120db. There is no music out there to exploit this difference anyway. Only those spectacular CDÂ’s.
Now most humans can't tell the difference in sound if the signal to noise ratio is greater than 85 DB's. True audiophile's can tell the difference in something that has an s/n of 120db compare to 90db.
Now here where it get complicated. Some people claim they can here a difference and they really canÂ’t. It is just their mind having them think, that they can, because they know it is an improvement, so they think that they can hear a difference.
Other tricks by the industry is to have that super CD player changed inside in certain ways. Like internally in that CD player. They will boost the lower midrange (400-600 Hz), cut the mid high range (1-4 kHz where our ears are the most sensitive to loud sound) sound, because they know that, that this new sound will be an improvement. They will also boost the preamp output voltage, because to most people, louder is better. They will also put an expander / compressor in the loop, so people can hear the difference. Guess what. ThatÂ’s cheating. Because if you do that to the 16 bit CD player it will sound the same way.
Denon is notorious for cheating. They play at high end. Most of their product donÂ’t even make spec when you test them. You might not even have what they say that they put in it.