My experience is a little bit similiar to yours Glenn. For playback the best on board chip I've had was on my old Dell with yamaha XG on board. On my computer with the realtec, I thought the playback sound was quite disappointing in comparison regardless of all the settings I tried. Getting my EMU 0404 interface and disabling the realtec was a huge night and day difference for playback. The latest new on board ones must be much better.

Interesting discussion.