I crossed it out because I hadn't taken into account that by "RCA" he might be referring to S/PDIF coaxial, as I already said, which would mean that he WOULD be switching from a digital to audio connection, a thing that I said would be the only case in which he'd be right about it being the DAC. It wouldn't really surprise me if it were the DAC either, onboard audio solutions are all delicate and crappy, with very, very few exceptions
And, since I don't work with the micro/software side of audio, I didn't actually know that about HDMI. Though, he would be helped by a new soundcard if he also has S/PDIF optical inputs on his stereo receiver, since optical S/PDIF is superior to (if only more fragile than) coaxial S/PDIF. The thing is, though, optical cables cannot be bent too much or they will snap and become useless.
Also, Creative still releases audio cards with hardware acceleration for some features of OpenAL, and only when it's through OpenAL. It's almost like they technically own the rights to OpenAL.
And, since I don't work with the micro/software side of audio, I didn't actually know that about HDMI. Though, he would be helped by a new soundcard if he also has S/PDIF optical inputs on his stereo receiver, since optical S/PDIF is superior to (if only more fragile than) coaxial S/PDIF. The thing is, though, optical cables cannot be bent too much or they will snap and become useless.
Also, Creative still releases audio cards with hardware acceleration for some features of OpenAL, and only when it's through OpenAL. It's almost like they technically own the rights to OpenAL.
in a perfect world we would all be piles of sand with no ability to form coherent bodies of body