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[pclausen]

I have 2 primary locations with AV gear as follows:

Upstairs -  3 Zones
Denon 3808 receiver
HTPC connected via HDMI (only used for watching movies)
Zone 1 TV Room
Zone 2 Living Room
Zone 3 back deck

Downstairs - 2 zones
Onkyo 885 pre/pro
HTPC connected via HDMI (only used for watching movies)
Zone 1 Theater
Zone 2 Playroom

All my video and audio content lives on a headless server that the HTPCs mentioned above access via Ethernet.

For audio, I run digital coax to the upstairs receiver, and optical to the downstairs pre/pro.

I then remote into the server (using RDP) from either my notebook or workstation, fire up MC (single zone setup) and pick my music.  Then, if I want to listen to music upstairs, I just select the CD input (which is mapped to the coax digital input), and then turn on the zones (using the Denon remote) I want to be active.  If I also want to listen to music downstairs, I simply turn on the Onkyo and the amps feeding the zone(s) I want to listed in, and again pick the CD input.

I recently upgraded the mobo in the server, and the new one does not have any built-in audio, nor does it have any PCI slots, so my trusty old M-Audio Delta I/O sound card won't work.

So I'm trying to decide how to best proceed.  I see that there are PCI-E sounds cards available, but I haven't seen any that feature both coax and optical outs, and I have likewise not come across any USB based soundcards that do either.

I thought about using the HTPCs as MC 'Clients', but unfortunately neither of my receivers allow passing HDMI audio to anything but the primary zone (this same issue is preventing me from listening to DirecTV audio channels on anything but the primary zones).  I suppose I could overcome this by connecting optical/coax between each HTPC and AVR (leaving the HDMI there for watching movies)?

Anyway, I was just wondering what you guys are doing in a similar situation.  What I had before worked pretty well, so if you can point me to a decent soundscard with both coax and digital outs for PCIE, that would work, but I'm certainly open to alternatives.