i got the response from rme's support that there is something wrong with the sample frequency ... but they doubt that it's a problem of the card itself ... there are two possibilities then ... it's either a problem on the alsa side or on the cardbus/pci side ... btw, playing with the settings of hdspconf the distortion seems to be related to the spdif out _emphasis_ option ... it seems to sound softer ... i'll try to create a sample/screen shot of it tomorrow... is this option somehow related to the sample clock? take care... Tim mailto:TimBlechmann@gmx.de ICQ: 96771783 -- The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" Jack Kerouac