Juli@ Soundcard - Digital Section

[Will]

A quick question, does anybody know if the Juli@ PCI soundcard is able to be used without the analogue section connected?

The card seems pretty good, with the digital section being separate from the analogue, but I would probably only be interested in using the digital side.

[rickcr42]

any digital section can be used without the analog circuitry connected but only if you have a plan that will work in YOUR system and by that I mean the voltage/impedance needs of the next stage following the sound card (drive ).

Your very first step should be to download the data sheets for the conversion chips of the Julie@ to see the methods used by the chip manufacturer and go from there but be aware if you go with a "minimalist" topology (simple DC Blocking cap) you will be placing ALL the drive requirements on the actual chip,will have NO Anti-Aliasing filter so you may be passing on digital artifacts to the next stage AND your ability to drive long cables (anything over 1-1.5 feet !) or a next stage with a low input impedance (anything under 50K Ohm) may be limited.

There IS a solution for the above problems if you MUST and that is to buffer the output but again,you need a PLAN before you proceed and that starts out with know the card,know the chips used and know your system requirements so you will know what you need

[Will]

Hi Rick,

Good info, but it's probably down to me not explaining myself clearly enough.

www.esi-audio.com/products/julia/

One of the pictures there shows that the board can physically separated, allowing either balanced/unbalanced io. The top part appears to be the analogue (plus connectors) section, the bottom the digital (and the relevant connectors) section.

I'm only really interested in using the SPDIF out from this card, and was basically wondering if the top analogue part could be left off, if I was only using the SPDIF output.

[rickcr42]

I more likely misread your inquiry me being the type that takes in an entire post as a "snapshot" where I without realizing it I burn the entire image to my short term memory banks rather than going to the tedious word by word method most mere mortals use

Looking at the actual user manual and going by the supplied pics my best guess would be no with the reason being that I see far too many chips with a typical "digital" package (the square ones with pins on all four sides) which tells me there is more than just analog section and local power supply regulation going on.I guess the best way to KNOW would be to contact ESI and ask the experts