I just bought an NAD c320 BEE and PSB Image 4t putting together my first hifi. I know that the logical next component for me to buy would be a CD player, but I was wondering about alternatives. I have been looking at some nice soundcards with 24 bit DAC's (becauser my understanding is DAC's make a big difference). This would be very convinient for me since I have all of my cd music converted to mp3 on my computer. I know there is a loss and this will not sound quite as good, but would a new soundcard for the computer provide decent sound? Is this a good cheaper and more convinient alternative to buying a new cd player? I do plan on buying a nice (probably NAD) cd player in the future, but would this be a reasonable substitute for the time being?? Also would it make sense for me, would there be a big upgrade in sound if I bi-wired the speakers?
I'm not into playing music from a pc. I presume a decent soundcard will sound ok but it's never going to sound fantastic playing mp3's from there. If it's a stopgap then by all means do it but I really wouldn't advise it.