Originally Posted by PunterCam

You could, but it really doesn't matter; your ear will adjust to the sound in a few seconds anyway and it will just sound normal, as long as the EQ is roughly balanced.

The only reason you'd want to take a digital out of a card is for proper professional music production, where you need to hear everything, and for that you need more than a stereo/5.1 output (you want at least 32 digital outs really). And then you need to convert it to analogue which is where the real money is spent - you'll spend thousands on the ProTools i/o's.

I reckon the difference between most so called 'gamer' cards and the 'pro audio' cards is the software provided, and the style of the literature/box that comes with. Just buy a cheap one!