PC S/PDIF Input Card?

Yeah, I've been looking at that card. That kinda defeats the purpose of getting a DAT deck, though, which I already have (a Panasonic SV-3700, by the way). Well, aside from the fact that the DAT deck is slightly more portable.

 

I assume you're talking about Kbps, rather than frequency..? Either way, la-li-lu-le-lo, higher is better. The vast majority of people cannot hear the difference between 44.1KHz and 48KHz, though, and even less would really care. The minor conversion artifacts that SB cards introduce are similarly audiophile-only territory, and in my experience most self-proclaimed audiophiles fail the coke test when it comes to hearing differences. Working in a music tech environment, a lot of the people who yell about the s/n ratio of their top-end cards or the frequency response of their expensive speakers will be the same ones who encode their output to 128Kbps wmv without realising it.

EDIT: sorry retro, that comes across as almost a personal dig, I wasn't referring to you in particular. I agree that flawed hardware should, in principle, be avoided, and that SB play dirty when it comes to their cards, but in this case I don't think it's an issue.

Yeah, that looks fine. An older model off ebay might be a cheaper and equally effective option. I still say it's not necessary if he's got a card with spdif in already, though

 

Woah, yeah, indeed that should be kbps! :redface: There's a lesson there - don't post on forums in the middle of the night whilst still quite drunk! heh. :lol:

Hehe, no worries, I didn't take any offense ;-) To be honest, I personally record most of the time in 44.1kHz, mostly because that's what it would end up as, anyway, but also because the difference is negligible. Hence my dislike of the sB - there's no reason for extra resampling (twice, as you'll go back to 44.1 for CD), they're a cheap, shoddy brand and Creative treat their customers abysmally. Even with my EMU, they were most unhelpful, and when ordering parts, they sent the wrong ones twice!!

My EMU packed up not long after, and they refused to service it! They told me I had to take it back to my dealer, despite it being out of warranty, and get them to arrange the repair. I live in England. I bought the card in New York. I believe Creative are based in Germany (the European branch, anyway), but they refused to deal with me directly!

I'm getting a MOTU when I can afford it!

I've never played with the CD S/PDIF port, so I don't know whether it would work. I know that on my Live, there was something specific for the phono / optical inputs on the Live!Drive in the drivers, but it has been a veeery long time since I used that card! I really couldn't say whether the CD port will give the results he wants. Theory's there, though! I just hope he doesn't end up needing to use it for more advanced things, as the latency on a Live SUCKS!