[linux-audio-user] External DAC for mastering use?

[Jussi Laako]

On Thu, 2004-03-18 at 16:49, Mark Knecht wrote:

> I think Steve's observation about clock quality is protentially very 
> important. there can be more jitter in less expensive units, such as PC 
> s/pdif implementations. That said, nothing stops you from hooking up 
> your D/A that way today and then going to a better s/pdif environment 
> later should you decide to.

Clock is important, depending on D/A converter. Converter can also
reclock the signal. My converter has jumper selectable reclocking.

Other important thing on S/PDIF interfaces is that some soundcards can
only output at some samplerate or do other nasty things before
outputting the signal in digital format. Some cards use fixed internal
samplerate of 48 kHz and then do samplerate conversion for other rates.
Those may not be able to do direct 44.1 -> 44.1 output, but may rather
do something like 44.1 -> 48 -> 44.1. Some examples are Aureal Vortex2
and some Sound Blaster cards.


-- 
Jussi Laako <jussi.laako at pp.inet.fi>