• interface, it would probably be their Juli@. This is almost entirely based on subjective impressions (full disclosure: second-hand too!  ), and perceived value for money, except that I seem to remember that it scored amazingly well in loopback tests done by Gearslutz members, and was near the top of the list, head to head with the expensive stuff.
  
  I currently have an Echo Audiofire2, but they don't make them any longer. And, being a recovering audiophile, who also rarely records anything these days, I too mostly use a USB DAC.

If I recall correctly, the X-Fi HD USB does not have hardware support for 44.1/88.2/176.4 kHz sample rates, so it requires software resampling for CD format audio - not necessarily a problem with a good converter like the SoX resampler plugin for foobar2000, but might be worth noting. It is also said to be using NJM4556 output buffers (like many other devices by Creative), which is perfectly fine for driving both headphone and line outputs. A potential problem is that it may possibly have fairly high output impedance (although the NJM4556 does not require that, the resistors may still be there anyway, e.g. for short circuit protection), and Creative also seems to like putting small (<= 220 uF) capacitors on the output. These could result in degraded bass performance.

This means that I need to configure my system to resample to 96khz for optimal sound quality - and probably I need to record audio via line-in in 96khz too? Do you think the "issue" about the headphones is noticable? Will the EI device perform better here?'

Hi,

I was recently looking for a new sound card for music playback and a good line-in for recording some tapes (optionally vinyl too). Currently, I'm using the Realtek on-board sound of my low-budget mainboard, but background noise is noticable and the quality of recorded audio via line-in sounds poor.

For another machine, I'm using a Behringer UFO-202 USB stereo audio interface, however its quality is quite poor; The line-in has bad contacts, I was not much confident with the device. So I investigated for an alternative high quality stereo interface, and the only one I came accross is the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD. It's an USB 2.0 sound card, and it seems to natively run with linux and has line-in (and also phono-in).

I've decided to start this thread in order to ask you whether you recommend this device. I've not had a sound blaster device for more than 10 years, and I remember that back in that time, audiophiles dismissed the creative devices (due to fixed sample rates I guess). It seems like I wouldn't need to install additional drivers or software, and that I can natively playback everything from 44.1khz to 96Khz, meaning that the device won't internally resample music?

Here's the link to the manufactor's page: http://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sou...usic-premium-hd

Thanks in advance for your comments

... Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD.

Yes, it is a pi 2 model B with the latest raspbian version.
It is recognized by the alsa mixer (volume control within the GUI) without any driver installation and i use it with ffplay as part of a multi room setup.