I just inserted an Asus Xonar SE ($69) sound card. It works in a new Intel i5-12400 boxen. I spend enough time in the office to listen to sound and music through a more than decent Yamaha / Dynaudio ...

If these were the early 2000s. We would have said that having a sound card is a flex. With good reason, too. You'd slap one into your PC, crank up a media player, and pretend you were mastering audio.

I've read a lot of stuff about this going both ways. Thought I'd ask here in case anybody can give me more insight. Basically, some people seem to say, "Unless you're a professional sound engineer, ...