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Digital-only soundcard (S/PDIF) vs FireWire for Recording

post #1 of 9
8/23/08 at 12:39am
Thread Starter 
All my computer audio experience has been with playback. Now I need to record, and could use some help. I tried "Search", but did not come up with answers to my questions. I hope I am not repeating well-discussed issues.

I have an A/D converter in my integrated amp, and it will output 24/96 on S/PDIF via coax from any analog source, including phono (it has a phono stage). So it occurs to me this would be a great way to to do rips from LPs.

Should I buy a digital-only sound card with an S/PDIF input -- I assume the card comes with a driver and will store .wav files for me. Or, do I connect the S/PDIF to a recording device (like ProSonus) that outputs FireWire, and use FireWire to connect to the PC (I assume the device also comes with a driver to create .wav files)?

What particular brands/models in either case would you suggest (for Windows XP)?

Do I have the general concept correct?

How do you start and stop the recording -- I want only individual tracks. I understand I can edit in Nero later, but the less I have to do the better.

Thanks -- I am a total newbie vis-a-vis recording.
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post #2 of 9
8/23/08 at 1:23pm
Almost all audio interfaces (like the Presonus you mentioned) have some sort of digital input (either coax/optical SPDIF or AES/EBU). Your interface should come with some sort of mixing application that would allow you to select a digital input for recording.

From there, you would use some sort of recording software (I highly recommend Audacity) to record from your digital input, while your turntable is playing.

I don't own any sort of interface, so I can only recommend particular brands based on my own research.

For PCI sound cards, there's M-Audio and EMU in the budget-minded area. Lynx and RME also make PCI cards, but they are insanely expensive.

Stand-alone audio interfaces are either USB or Firewire based. You mention that your receiver outputs 24/96, but as far as I know, no USB interface is able to accept that high of a bit-rate (at least without downsampling it). Firewire is a much more popular solution these days. Presonus and M-Audio are good choices, as they are very no-frills in design, with a digital input.

Starting and stopping should be as easy as pushing the stop button inside of the recording application. I would highly recommend recording the entire album, though, as you're bound to miss pushing record at the right time, and will end up clipping the beginning of a song. Just my results, when I attempted a similar thing.
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post #3 of 9
8/23/08 at 4:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sschell View Post
Stand-alone audio interfaces are either USB or Firewire based. You mention that your receiver outputs 24/96, but as far as I know, no USB interface is able to accept that high of a bit-rate (at least without downsampling it). Firewire is a much more popular solution these days.
There's no aspect of the usb2 specification that would make it impossible to do 24/96 over usb. There's a popular myth that there is, but there isn't.

The default usb audio interface may or may not support it - I haven't checked. But i do have first-hand knowledge of 24/96 usb recording interfaces.

Like the Tascam US-144.
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post #4 of 9
8/23/08 at 11:15pm
Thread Starter 
Wow, lots of links, very interesting, thanks!

I have both USB and FireWire in, so FireWire is no problem. I will research all the brands you mentioned ... thanks again!

I also found the Digital Audio Labs CardDeluxe which -- like any digital sound card I guess -- lets me plug the S/PDIF right into the back of the card, but they say they will write bitperfect .wav's to the hard disk in real-time, so that's a possible choice too, kinda like EAC but for streams. Ever hear of them? I will try to check them out against the ones you gave me the links to (M-Audio, EMU, and the expensive Lynx and RME).

This sounds like fun! Thanks again.
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post #5 of 9
8/24/08 at 3:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by wavoman View Post
I also found the Digital Audio Labs CardDeluxe which -- like any digital sound card I guess -- lets me plug the S/PDIF right into the back of the card, but they say they will write bitperfect .wav's to the hard disk in real-time, so that's a possible choice too, kinda like EAC but for streams. Ever hear of them? I will try to check them out against the ones you gave me the links to (M-Audio, EMU, and the expensive Lynx and RME).
I have not heard of the brand, but the features/specs of the Deluxe look pretty nice.

I'm pretty sure that most sound cards with digital inputs don't resample/reclock the incoming signal (unless you enable that functionality under the mixer settings), so they shouldn't add any additional processing to the signal. Real-time recording is not an issue, either, as Audacity (mentioned it earlier) or pretty much any modern recording software can record to disk or memory instantly (latency may be an issue, but that's a more complex hardware/software problem).
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post #6 of 9
8/24/08 at 4:08pm
The A/D converter will make more difference than coaxial S/PDIF vs. Firewire/USB, because the signal transmitted over Firewire essentially is a modified S/PDIF signal. As long as a device has a digital input, it should work for your purpose.
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post #7 of 9
8/26/08 at 1:34am
Thread Starter 
Got it, thanks ... it seems like the bottom line is: any sound card with a digital input is going to work. I am starting with digital, so I won't use the A/D converter of the card, so in fact getting a high-end card would be, under this theory, a waste.

Find any modern card with s/pdif input, and assume it will write to disk fast enough ... that's what you're saying.

Will do!
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post #8 of 9
8/26/08 at 12:38pm
Well, assuming it supports 24/96 anyway.

I get the impression that from an ic design perspective, capture is easier than transmit. when you read the datasheets for the codecs, they often are able to record all sorts of rates that they won't play back. Seems odd.
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post #9 of 9
7/29/11 at 5:56pm

I have the DAL Carddeluxe in my system, so I can answer any questions you might have.  What I can say..when I do video capturing recordings I loop the sound output from my onboard sound via the SPDIF to the SPDIF in on the CardDeluxe and get an essentially bit perfect copy of the sound.  I haven't gone through any major tests with it, but when I normalize the volume on quiet passages that I recorded I can't hear any background hiss/noise.

EDIT: Hadn't realized how old this thread was.  If a mod or something wants to remove my post that's fine.


Edited by SatoshiLyish - 7/29/11 at 5:58pm
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