AD / DA converter once again

[vogler]

Hi,
i'm absolutely new here, and quite newbie in home recording. i'm going to build gradualy my small home studio during next few years (as my finances let me). i read much to be prepared, and to not waste too much money.
as some of you may know there are some obvious questions that do not have to be explained anywhere...
one of these is: where ad / da converter should be set? between what gear?
is it necessary only if each of your studio machine is fully digitaly conected (trough spdif) to one another, or every machine is analog? i ask because every cheap (and only one i can afford, at least now) machine is digital with interenal converter: effects, compresor, enchancer.... so which and when singnal should be coverted by external device?
thanks for you patience in aswering question and sorry if my english isn't good for you
greetings from Poland / Breslau (Wroclaw)
Thomas

 

[vogler]

of course i wanted you to answer my questions ...

 

[Easto]

It's my belief that the a/d converter should be located as close to the source as possible.

 

[c7sus]

The shortest signal path is usually preferred.

So your signal chain looks like this:

Mic > preamp > soundcard.

I'm monitoring off my soundcard outputs. If you're card has low enough latency you can get away with this.