Do you use S/PDIF? Are there any affordable Audio-to-S/PDIF converters?

I have several audio interfaces and they all have two digital S/PDIF channels.
 
I have never seen any synthesizers, guitar amps or ANYTHING that has an S/PDIF input or output (except my DAT taperecorder, discarded long ago).
 
The new(ish) Tascam US-2000 has no MIDI anymore - but it has S/PDIF! Weird.
 
Does anyone know of a convertor or small mixer or SOMEthing portable (and affordable) that can convert an analog audio signal to S/PDIF?

I have several audio interfaces and they all have two digital S/PDIF channels.

SPDIF stands for Sony-Philips Digital Interconnect Format and its a digital audio format
Its used for transerfering digital stereo files on sound cards and othe rsystems such as a CD player
Cj
 

I use the SPDIF in/out on my Motif ES keyboard as well as on my audio interfaces quite regularly for recording.  It is quite helpful to be able to eliminate the inherent noise associated with going through multiple audio effects/preamps/and other devices.

msr

JazzSinger


I have several audio interfaces and they all have two digital S/PDIF channels.
 
I have never seen any synthesizers, guitar amps or ANYTHING that has an S/PDIF input or output (except my DAT taperecorder, discarded long ago).
 
The new(ish) Tascam US-2000 has no MIDI anymore - but it has S/PDIF! Weird.
 
Does anyone know of a convertor or small mixer or SOMEthing portable (and affordable) that can convert an analog audio signal to S/PDIF?

Many devices have S/PDIF but you have be check several things to make sure it's going to work.  First make sure the device can do the sample rate of your project. When using a digital interface like S/PDIF you can't have them be different sample rates. I've seen guitar effects that can only do 48k so if your project is 44.1k you can't use the S/PDIF connection.  If you use 96k for your project you have to verify the device can even do that rate.

The second big issue with digital interfaces is sample rate clock source. You can only have one device or the other be the sample rate clock source and to make matters worse S/PDIF is only single direction so if you have only S/PDIF out on the device you want to use it has to be the clock for the sound card also. That can degrade the quality of all audio even on the analog in and out of your sound card.  There's not even a good way to tell if it's worse or not until it's too late.

So do your homework if you purchase a S/PDIF device. Make sure it can do the sample rate you work at and try to get one that will accept sample rate clock from your sound card, either by S/PDIF in or Word Clock (if your sound card has that).

As for A/D converters it's hard to find just that. Most are either poor quality or so expensive it would be cheaper to get a sound card with more analog inputs. I don't know of one in the middle.

I have spidif connectors and to increase my outs so I can use outboard stuff, I have on order a behringer ultra patch pro.  This will allow me to use my spidif connector on my Lexicon IONIX as spare outs and allow me to hook in my outboard compressor.

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I use the spdif out on my Motif XS which means I am locked to 44kHz 16bit, am I missing a trick?

There’s loads of gear out there that have S/PDIF connections. Most audio interfaces for one thing. I have more than one hardware synth with S/PDIF, as well as one of my mixing consoles.

I've got a Mytek A/D converter (semi-high end) with an s/pdif out thaqt I'll be putting on eBay once I get the time to list it.

Also, some of the PODs (a lot of guitar processors) have spdif outs (though I personally just use the analog because it's simpler and the difference in quality is negligible to my ears.

A BTW on above: when I am ready to record audio from the GigaDAW I just set the input in SONAR to Echo digital in and it's there.

JazzSinger


Does anyone know of a convertor or small mixer or SOMEthing portable (and affordable) that can convert an analog audio signal to S/PDIF?

 

I've seen various rackmount boxes (like reverbs) that have SPDIF output; I've often wondered if you couldn't use the analog input, turn the effects off, and get SPDIF out.  Essentially, using the box as an A/D converter.

I've used SPDIF and I like it a lot, when I can get it to work.  My Korg synth, for instance, has optical SPDIF output, and my receiver has optical SPDIF input -- it works, but it glitches up a LOT.  The same Korg, however, can plug into the computer SPDIF, and it works FINE.  Similarly, I can plug the SPDIF from OTHER devices into the receiver, and they work fine!  So it's not that I have "broken SPDIF," on any of these devices.  I just have compatibility issues...  many more than I have mentioned here.