The optical output on XV-5080 is a really nice feature. Yesterday I digitally recorded thru the optical output on my XV into my optical input on my SB Live Platinum-card. If I then burn the music on a CD, the music will then only go thru (become analog) the CD-players D/A-converter.

Nice one...

Using the SB Live Platinum card though, it will go through a sample rate conversion which, still is not that great. The SB Live is a 48 kHz card and does internal sample rate conversion when you want to go to 44.1 kHz. You can keep it at 48 kHz but when you go to CD, it must be at the 44.1 kHz rate.

The ideal would be using a card that can record at a true 44.1 kHz sampling rate.

Fernando

You're absolutely right, but it's still not going thru any analog "noisy" convertions.

I think you'll find the noise introduced by the SB Live's resampling every bit as noisy as the analogue noise; when I set Soundforge to record at 44khz via the SPDIF in I only got about a -77db noise floor which was no better than the analogue in. This dropped to -90.3 for 48k, but is still far from being a 'true' digital in...

However, a bigger problem than the noise floor is that the SB Live doesn't sync to the incoming SPDIF signal either, it just 'freewheels'. Any recordings I did through the SB Live's SPDIF were full of Clicks and Pops and so were unusable. I think you'd do best sticking to the analogue in, or buying a decent pro audio card rather than a gaming card. It seems a shame to spend a lot on a top-of-the-range pro synth module then use it via a consumer-toy-gaming card; investing in a decent pro-audio card would be money well spent.

I just upgraded from an SB Live to a Midiman Delta 66 and it's like having cotton wool removed from your ears; I could never go back to the Live for any serious audio work.

Happy recording,
Pete