Best sound card under $200 ?

[orlandopiano]

Audiophile all the way. One of the leading cards as far as bang for buck.

Aside from needing more ins/outs you'll never need to upgrade. Amazing latency, pristine sound, SPDIF, balanced io, it's a monster of a card.

I pulled the trigger on the Audiophile 192. I do have one more concern though. For this particular DAW, my computer will be connected to a consumer AVR. No mixer, no serperate amp, no powered monitors etc, just a Harman Kardon AVR 225 typically used for home theatre and CDs. Long story why, but I just have to have it this way. The inputs on the receiver are RCA. So I would be going TRS from the Audiophile 192, to RCA of the receiver. And there's another problem, the receiver is a good 25 feet in cable length from the computer. So my questions are:

1. Will my connection stay balanced? Do they make cables where both the TRS side and RCA side are balanced?
2. Will I experience reduced quality audio signal due to the long length of the cables?

Thanks in advance!

[bbcmodelb]

RCA connectors are unbalanced, so the signal will pick up a tiny amount of noise on the way - but it probably won't be too bad (or even noticeable) since you're outputting line levels. Just make sure you have a good quality screened cable (not the cheap cables that usually come with RCAs) and keep the cable away from any transformers etc.

[Dayl]

RCA connectors are unbalanced, so the signal will pick up a tiny amount of noise on the way - but it probably won't be too bad (or even noticeable) since you're outputting line levels. Just make sure you have a good quality screened cable (not the cheap cables that usually come with RCAs) and keep the cable away from any transformers etc.

On that note, and I dont want to go too off topic here, but my
balanced cables produce a lower volume than my unbalanced 1/4 jack to rca.

Is that right?