Audio playback- interface or sound card?

[cerfew]

I just bought a Lexicon Alpha, and it's been working great for me so far.
I just have one question.

Should I use the Alpha to play back audio, or my built-in audio card?

In my opinion, I would have less latency using the sound card, let me explain:

Using the alpha for playback, we'd have a route such as: Lexicon Alpha=>USB cord=>Sonar Home Studio=>USB cord back to => Alpha, then to speakers.

There'd be an A=>D (or vice versa) conversion both times through the USB cord, my thought is that USB would add some latency, whereas otherwise I could go from Sonar to my sound card to my speakers. It would still be a D/A conversion, but no USB in the way... Make sense?

Any ideas?

 

[TimOBrien]

ALL built-in soundcards have about 40cents worth of chips in them.
(dont be taken in by marketing-speak, they are NOT 'hi-def')

Do you REALLY want to be making decisions based on that?

Besides, ASIO (the low-latency drivers you WANT to use) only allows one device driver at one time....

 

[izman]

yes definately if you want better sound quality use theAsio playback with your interface for the speakers not the one withe the computer because they dont have better quality.