Digital In And Out

[Doug Hess Jr.]

Please enlighten me on Digital In and Out. I have a CD player with direct digital out (1/8 in. jack) My computer SOund Card had an 1/8th in. digital in and I borrowed a DAT machine with digital in and out but uses XLR plugs. Is this the same digital signal? Can I use standard XLR to 1/4 in. phone jack adapters for audio and plug from the DAT to my soundcard?

Any help would be appreciated. If this has been covered before, just send me to the thread. Thanks.
Doug

[RetroSmith]

Doug, the answer is yes , it should all work. The reason is that none of your ins/out are Optical.

If they were optical, you would need a converter. but since they arent, they should all be compatible. You *may* have some handshaking problems, if you do, try turning everything off, and try different power sequences. I had that problem with my first DAT deck and my dig out Cd player. turning the DAT on LAST made them handshake.

One thing--- If you have a "Copy Protected " Cd, you cant rip it, BUT, the digital Out on your Cd player should pass the data into your PC without the problems. Try it and see!!

Mikey

[Jamie Tate]

Originally posted by dough1981
I have a CD player with direct digital out (1/8 in. jack) My computer SOund Card had an 1/8th in. digital in

I'm assuming these 1/8" connections are RCA jacks.

What you need is an XLR to RCA cable. All you have to do is solder the cable connected to pin 2 of the XLR end to the tip of the RCA cord and solder the XLR's pins 1 and 3 together to the other connection of the RCA cord. If you're using some older gear that used pin 3 as hot just switch pin 2 and pin 3. I know it sounds confusing but it's really simple. PM me if you need any help

[lukpac]

I'm no digital expert, but the only 1/8" digital connection I'm aware of is optical. Such a connection is quite common on CD players, MiniDisc recorders, etc... I'm tending to think that the connections Doug is speaking of are optical, although I could be wrong.

I know RCA jacks are much larger than 1/8"...

[RetroSmith]

Luk, the 1/8 dig out on my Cd player was non-optical. I guess it dependsa on the manufacturer.

[lukpac]

Originally posted by mikey5967
Luk, the 1/8 dig out on my Cd player was non-optical. I guess it dependsa on the manufacturer.

Are you sure about that, Mikey? The only non-optical digital connection I've seen on home gear is coaxial, which is larger than 1/8".

On the other hand, 1/8" optical connections are quite common these days.

[Doug Hess Jr.]

The Digital Out on my CD player is RCA
I had a portable with an 1/8th in. mini Non-optical digital out as well (but it got stolen).

I'm assuming the digital in on my Santa Cruz sound card and/or my Soundblaster Live (that I took out for the quieter analog of the Turtle Beach) are both non-optical 1/8th in. as well.

Thanks for the wealth of information. This is tied to the live recording over in the music section you guys helped with, but I wanted to make sure I followed proper protocal by putting this question here in hardware.

Doug

[RetroSmith]

Originally posted by lukpac


Are you sure about that, Mikey? The only non-optical digital connection I've seen on home gear is coaxial, which is larger than 1/8".

On the other hand, 1/8" optical connections are quite common these days.

>>positive, it was non optical.