S/PDIF to Headphone? (Delta1010)

ches1

ches1

New member
hi all!

I would like to know how can I plug my headphone in the S/PDIF out of my delta1010 card???

I looked at some headphone amp but was unsuccesful at finding one that have an S/PDIF input??

I really need help

Peace.

P.S. this post was deleted the first time, if there's a better board to put it, inform me before deleting please...
 
You can't. Headphones are looking for an analog signal, and S/PDIF is a digital signal. You'd need something that can do D/A conversion from the S/PDIF.
 
There are some headphone amps with S/PDIF in, like the Grace m902, but they tend to be quite spendy. Assuming you don't want to spend over a grand for a headphone amp, and if you really want to use that S/PDIF out for headphones, your best bet is to use a USB audio interface with S/PDIF I/O and a headphone out, like a Tascam US-144 for $149.00. Then you get a laptop interface, and some extra channels for your desktop DAW out of the deal.
 
Robert D said:
There are some headphone amps with S/PDIF in, like the Grace m902, but they tend to be quite spendy. Assuming you don't want to spend over a grand for a headphone amp, and if you really want to use that S/PDIF out for headphones, your best bet is to use a USB audio interface with S/PDIF I/O and a headphone out, like a Tascam US-144 for $149.00. Then you get a laptop interface, and some extra channels for your desktop DAW out of the deal.
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*shiver* Maybe that will work if they both have S/PDIF for synchronization, but you'd be limited to WDM in Windows; ASIO only supports one driver at a time. If you're on a Mac, it should be possible. Either way, I can't imagine doing mixing USB and PCI audio, if only because your latency would probably have to slow to that of the slowest device in use.... :)

Why can't you use one of the analog outputs of the Delta 1010 to drive the headphone amp?
 
ches1 said:
so I would plug the tascam in the delta's s/pdif out and leave the usb alone?
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The TASCAM is powered and controlled by the USB bus, so no, you can't just use one as a format converter, AFAIK. Maybe you could set one up using WDM drivers and configure it to just pass the S/PDIF input straight to its output, but....
 
dgatwood said:
*shiver* Maybe that will work if they both have S/PDIF for synchronization, but you'd be limited to WDM in Windows; ASIO only supports one driver at a time. If you're on a Mac, it should be possible. Either way, I can't imagine doing mixing USB and PCI audio, if only because your latency would probably have to slow to that of the slowest device in use.... :)

Why can't you use one of the analog outputs of the Delta 1010 to drive the headphone amp?
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I'm really not sure what would happen, to be honest. It's not the kind of thing most people would try. But I'm not talking about sending the audio through the USB pipe. The USB would be nothing but a power supply, which would be active as soon as the USB buss enumerates the device. So I don't think there's a latency issue, which is why I didn't say he'd get a heaphone out and an extra couple of A/Ds (then there would be). I'm thinking you would go into the USB interface control panel, set the S/PDIF interface clock to external, and monitor it on the headphone out.

Remember, it's S/PDIF, which has nothing to do with WDM, ASIO, or any of that. You could hook up a DAT player to it, a keyboard with S/PDIF out, anything at all with S/PDIF. Also, it's a headphone out he's talking about, so it doesn't need to be sample accurate with the 1010 driver. For sure it's something to call Tascam or whoever to find out about first before buying and trying.

I'm assuming the reason for this is that all 8 analog outs have a job already.
 
Robert D said:
I'm really not sure what would happen, to be honest. It's not the kind of thing most people would try. But I'm not talking about sending the audio through the USB pipe. The USB would be nothing but a power supply, which would be active as soon as the USB buss enumerates the device. So I don't think there's a latency issue, which is why I didn't say he'd get a heaphone out and an extra couple of A/Ds (then there would be). I'm thinking you would go into the USB interface control panel, set the S/PDIF interface clock to external, and monitor it on the headphone out.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that ought to work, assuming the device has enough built-in audio routing to do that. I interpreted your statement to mean that he should use the two interfaces as full-blown interfaces, which could be a little dicey.
 
I would just get a headphone amp and useing and pair of the Delta"s outputs to drive the hedAmp...If all of your analogue outouts on the Delta are in use you can use a couple of Y splitters to to get the 2 extra outputs.....


Cheers
 
""Why can't you use one of the analog outputs of the Delta 1010 to drive the headphone amp?""

the Monitor Mix is only sent trough output 1&2 and the s/pdif, since 1/2 is hooked to my speakers there's only the s/pdif left for "headphone monitoring"

maybe I got the routing of the delta1010 wrong?
maybe I could buy monitors that use s/pdif input(I currently use home stéréo speaker trough an old ass reciever(wich beside some noise has a beautiful sound))???

after all that talk the robert D solution seems like a good idea but I paid 160$ for them headphone, an other 140$ just to use'em... i dunno.

but yo thanks yall!
 
ches1 said:
the Monitor Mix is only sent trough output 1&2 and the s/pdif, since 1/2 is hooked to my speakers there's only the s/pdif left for "headphone monitoring"
Click to expand...

You mean hardware input monitoring, I assume, since you should be able to route software-driven monitoring anywhere. Either way, just make sure the headphone amp has pass-through outputs. Most do, IIRC. I just looked at my Presonus HP4 to make sure. :)
 
You may want to go and ask over at Head-Fi, there's ton's of DAC's out there that will take the spdif in and convert it to analog, many of them with built in headphone amps. They range from cheap to absurdly expensive.
 
dgatwood said:
You mean hardware input monitoring, I assume, since you should be able to route software-driven monitoring anywhere. Either way, just make sure the headphone amp has pass-through outputs. Most do, IIRC. I just looked at my Presonus HP4 to make sure. :)
Click to expand...

you know what, for whatever reason (I just checked this on my TDIF cards), maudio allows the hardware input mixer to be routed to the SPDIF and analog 1/2 out ONLY on the delta cards (?!?) so all this makes quite a bit more sense now.

I will change my recommendation to getting a splitter for the 1/2 analog outs, one pair routed to your monitors, the other pair to a headphone amp
 
altitude909 said:
I will change my recommendation to getting a splitter for the 1/2 analog outs, one pair routed to your monitors, the other pair to a headphone amp
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Like I said, you shouldn't need a splitter. Most headphone amps have an output. Just put it between the Delta's outputs and the monitors/amp.
 
i know it's not exactly the same issue but anyone here now why the 1010 would be routing the main out as the spdif out and not the analogue 1/2 outs.. I can't figure out how to change it.. seems everything I do doesn't work.. damn vista drivers
 
finally.... I'm getting a presonus HP4.

M-Audio should REALLY add an headphone jack on their 1010 card.

Peace yall and thanks for your inputs, now I'm done with this issue.
 
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