recs for TOSLINK stable/10 PCI audio card

[Russell L. Carter]

On 06/18/16 05:39, Clemens Ladisch wrote:
> Russell L. Carter wrote:
>> So digging through the offerings on newegg, I am not seeing anything
>> obvious that provides a TOSLINK connector and is *not* C-Media.
>
> Some mainboards have a toslink output.

Indeed, I'm listening to S/PDIF TOSLINK output on the old mb I'm
wanting to replace.  It's a Realtek ALC889A:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/high-end-pc-audio,3733-6.html

Sounds pretty good fed into a venerable NAD T-163.

I also have a xonar dg but I can't tell the difference between the two
(ancient ears).  This is on linux.  Apparently FreeBSD supports the
ALC889A, which (also apparently) only comes on motherboards.

>
>> https://github.com/torvalds/linux/tree/master/sound/pci/oxygen
>>
>> Is a clean room (re)implementation really required to avoid the license
>> issue?
>
> Why, did the author refuse when you asked him?

I didn't think of that. Doh. Upon evaluating all my options after
a pretty thorough review of the situation, I'm going to shuffle some
systems around so I can keep the multimedia function on the old mb.

Best,
Russell

>
> Regards,
> Clemens