I’ve just received my Onkyo SE-90PCI from my friend at Singapore. Thanks bro :). Before I spend my time to mod it, I take some photos. Enjoy it.

The photo of the Onkyo SE-90PCI. A simple, half PCI sound card.


A little bit closer photo. We can see three op-amps, one DAC, one DSP, and some mid-to-high quality capacitors.


Another view from the side. This card only provide 2 analog output and 1 Optical out. No Coaxial (sorry!).


A closed up photo at the DSP. Onkyo chooses VIA Envy24 MT. Not a sophisticated chipset, but should be fit for a stereo application like this SE-90PCI.


We can see the capacitors around the DAC (Wolfson WM8716). They provide filtering for the WM8716’s power supply pins. I haven’t checked them all, will examine later when I mod the card.


For the output coupling, Onkyo pick the Elna Silmic II. One of the best capacitor around. I wonder to have BG NX Hi-Q series there.


Onkyo picks the Nichicon for supply filtering application. Not the best capacitors around, but perhaps one of the best for a consumer class sound card.


Aha… an Sanyo Os-Con. Very popular capacitor for Digital-to-Analog application. I think this is the perfect “man” at perfect position.


Three op-amps on the photo. I think they are based on Texas Instrument’s NE5532AP. Again, perhaps these are not the best op-amp available on the market. My Analog Device AD825 perhaps will sound better? 😉 Just perhaps!


“Dual-mono” design. Onkyo separates their left and right signal channel to provide better signal separation. We also can see a copper plate to prevent the noise from the left to right channel and vice versa.


I think both yellow circle on the photo above are the clock oscillators. But the frequency? I think 22.579 is still common number. But the 49.152? Well, quite difficult.

Huge and well designed plane. The designer really knows what he/she is doing!


A special tape used to protect the noise between components. Not everyone believes that such tape can provide significant improvement.

That’s all folks. Will examine the sound quality later. I’ve listened for about 1 hour while typing this article. My first impression is quite positive. My current sound card is EMU1820M. Will provide some small comparison later.