Topic: To Build or Buy tis that is the Question.....

[OOK]

I was wondering if its better to build or buy premade at this point.  HP W/beats comes to mind.  I would be using it for audio processing....budget 750$ or less....

If building is there a motherboard best suited for audio.  I see a lot of premades are coming with optical out right on the board as apposed to a sound card. 

I do have a m-audio delta24/96 card currently not in use.

Thanks OOK

[hi and lo]

In terms of build or buy, I will always recommend build to anyone with even the slightest bit of technical know-how. I realize that buying has it's place, but building a modern computer is ridiculously easy and it pays off to know exactly what components are in your system. Happy to assist with component recommendations if necessary and obviously this does not apply to mobile computing.

For playback, not sure I'm capable of seeing something like 'hp w/ beats' as anything more than marketing. Even if they sound better than most, you'll never get true audiophile playback inside a DAW. An external interface w/ ability to drive headphones will always be better which includes anything from a ~$100 USB or Firewire interface all the way up to something truly amazing like the Grace m902 or m903!

[OOK]

In terms of build or buy, I will always recommend build to anyone with even the slightest bit of technical know-how. I realize that buying has it's place, but building a modern computer is ridiculously easy and it pays off to know exactly what components are in your system. Happy to assist with component recommendations if necessary and obviously this does not apply to mobile computing.

For playback, not sure I'm capable of seeing something like 'hp w/ beats' as anything more than marketing. Even if they sound better than most, you'll never get true audiophile playback inside a DAW. An external interface w/ ability to drive headphones will always be better which includes anything from a ~$100 USB or Firewire interface all the way up to something truly amazing like the Grace m902 or m903!

Well that's the route I was going....Thinking digital out of a computer to a TC electronic BMC-2 monitor controller to a set of KRK RP6Gen
 2's.... 

Here is the controller.....         
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/619458-REG/tc_electronic_967_420011_BMC_2_Digital_Audio_Converter.html

[hi and lo]

Ah, I gotcha... Digital out on the motherboard vs. a dedicated audio card. Not too familiar with the topic (i'm using the far from perfect usb interface), but htpc enthusiasts seem to have asked this frequently. If you assume no resampling occurs, they would both sound the same. However, on board digital outs frequently resample to 48k to comply with the dvd/tv standard.

I guess I'd go with a dedicated sound card that's trusted, like the m-audio!

[rastasean]

I would suggest building a computer. $750 for building a computer can go quite far. check out bare bones systems at tiger direct to see how far $750 can go. The only issue is that they rarely come with any kind of operating system so if you want windows 7, you would need to buy the license.

Since you already have a sound card, might as well use it as long as it is compatible with the motherboard of your choice; however, you can then also compare the audio from the soundcard to the audio of the dedicated card to see if there is much of a difference.

[F.O.Bean]

I would think a non-resampling dedicated soundcard would be better. But I have no facts to back that statement up........