The problem is that my sound card was picking up noise in the case. My old AVR25 has no digital input so I couldn't use a Toslink or digital coax connection and was using a .125'' stereo mini to rca cable from the analog line out (FYI strangely enough the problem happens when running via the motherboard's built in sound chip as well). Moving the card to different slots on the mobo didn't help. I swapped in an older SBLive card and it was a little quieter but I still got noise. You could hear the second hard drive whir when it spooled up and there was occasionally a soft, rhythmic popping noise. The interior of my case is as clean as can be with ATA cables being the rounded kind (SATA cables are of course small and flat) and all cables routed around the case for better cooling.
Anyhow, my choice came down to either picking up a new sound card and probably getting the same results, yanking parts out of the computer until the sounds go away, or picking up the external DAC. Being a geek, I of course had no choice but to pick up a cool new piece of gear. Being that I'm preparing to upgrade the computer anyhow I figured why tear the machine apart right now?
As far as the similar designs, check out the computer chassis
here and the EB01
here. Like I said, the EB01 is the mini-me version of the case, no?
I'll post some pictures as soon as I am motivated to get my lazy @ss up and take some.
