S/pdif?

[Wogimlodger]

Okay, I just purchased an Audiophile 192. It works great! I just wanna know what exactly S/PDIF does. I don't know alot about recording, so if you can put it in simple terms, that would be good.

 

[bennychico11]

Sony/Phillips Digital Interface Format

it's a digital protocol. It was popular for CD and DAT but you'll see it on a wide variety of gear now.

It uses a single 75ohm coax cable usually terminated with RCA connectors. You can also see optical/TOSLINK connections.

Basically you get a S/PDIF cable and plug it in between your digital piece of gear that has S/PDIF in/out and your soundcard.

 

[bigwillz24]

I need a soundcard with multiple SPDiF's...

 

[Dags]

Sony/Phillips Digital Interface Format

it's a digital protocol. It was popular for CD and DAT but you'll see it on a wide variety of gear now.

It uses a single 75ohm coax cable usually terminated with RCA connectors. You can also see optical/TOSLINK connections.

Basically you get a S/PDIF cable and plug it in between your digital piece of gear that has S/PDIF in/out and your soundcard.

If I may add to the above, this was commonly used when transferring audio digitally between the above devices and computers. I think some mini-disk players also have this protocol??
I used to master onto DAT and then, when CDs were more reliable and cheaper, needed to transfer the songs back to my computer for archiving so I did this digitally. The S/PDIF signal includes a clock for synchronisation between devices. Very important to know which device is set to master or you'll get a really nasty hiss when the signal can't lock onto anything

Dags