a lot of questions about SPDIF, and sound cards.

M

musicman187

New member
hey all. well i have a lot of questions regarding a couple subjects. first off does anyone here use SPDIF?? i hear that its digital over analog sound, and eliminates sound that may be caused by the digital to analog conversion when using analog sound(its pure digital sound with no conversion). reason for me asking is that im very interested in this. thus leading me to my next dilemma. im currently building a computer for my music. the motherboard i will be getting has SPDIF but, im not sure if its decent for music engineering. the onboard audio device is a realtek alc889 with 8 channels. is this good??? if not, i was wondering if i should look into sound cards??? i mean what would be best?? i have a fast track pro, with SPDIF in and out, but should i maybe look into internal computer sound cards??? which would deliver not only better quality, but also performance. one more thing, how would i set up the SPDIF?? is any software involved as well??? price at the moment is of no concern. im simply looking for any info i can gather before i go on the hunt to find the hardware i desire. any and all advice is very much appreciated. thanks!
 
Typically motherboard-built-in-soundcards aren't as good as good pro or semipro ASIO PCI or USB or Firewire soundcards. But yeah, SPDIF is useful at times.

I use SPDIF out from my M-Audio Audiophile 2496 soundcard into my Edirol active monitors. The software that I use to configure it is just the control panel that comes with the the soundcard.

In the past, I also used SPDIF to send digital audio from one computer live into another computer. I use coaxial SPDIF now, but I've used optical SPDIF in the past. Both work fine, although coaxial can go over longer distances.

The main advantage is that you don't get static or noise or hum like analog cables sometimes get.
 
thanks astroidmist. ill be sure to find me a decent asio pci sound card then. another question, your saying that u dont really use it much for production?? because u stated that it was useful at times. Moderator, i wanted to just use this set up so i dont get what astroidmist mentioned. i want to eliminate any unwanted noise in my everyday production. and from what im taking in, is spdif something that is used commonly at all for music production???
 
S/PDIF was originally meant for the consumer market, and someone correct me if I'm wrong but there is a format known as AES/EBU that is the pro audio equivalent of S/PDIF and looks like an XLR connector. But I really don't see those around much, and on a lot of interfaces and soundcards or even DJ equipment, S/PDIF is the standard digital connection.
 
i see. and gradually spdif went from the consumer market into the music industry since im sure a majority of our audio interfaces have both an input/output for spdif. as far as aes/ebu, i really havent heard of it. but if it is the pro audio equivalent, i wish it were more popular. i feel that music has gone digital, and if that were to be the case, then digital audio should be the way to go no?? working with fl studio, im a bit obsessed with getting the most undistorted and cleanest possible sound. and thats what digital audio can deliver right? mistake me if im wrong.
 
A mixture of digital and analogue is the way to go. Even though everything will be finalised in digital anyway, the analogue equipment used will still have an impact. And AES/EBU I've seen on some high-end digital mixing consoles. Google it I really don't know much about the format myself.

---------- Post added at 10:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:56 PM ----------

Also the 'clean and undistorted' sound you're talking about is less to do with analogue or digital and more to do with pretty much everything else. Analogue can be extremely high quality too, it's just that it's often not viewed that way by people today.
 
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