4. The situation I described above with the Soundblaster card was also true
with my old Dell 4100 box I used to use for video, so it seems to be a
standard problem with that card, either all of them or my specific unit. As
I said, no problems with an older/cheaper Ensoniq card in my workshop
computer, which is a homebrew amalgam of castoff parts and is probably very
noisy and hashy inside since it's in tight quarters and has two extra
cooling fans, a separate IDE card, 4 hard drives and a CD burner. That
Ensoniq problem has no issues going unbalanced out to the unbalanced in of
my preamp in the workshop. Since the speakers for that system are right over
my workbench, I hear hum and hash loud and clear if there is any. So, again,
I'd say it's bad manufacturing practice on the part of some or many card
makers that lead to this assertion that quiet audio _can't_ come from an
internal card.