Hey - when you can get that bit perfect transfer for <$30, why debate (though it is a good debate)?
The Aopen card mentioned above, along with the Zoltrix Nightingale, the m-Audio DIO2448, Audio Excel MD-Mate and others, all use the same chip - Cmedia's 8738. It is capable of bit perfect transfers when properly set up. You can find more implementations here
http://www.cmedia.com.tw/Buy/e-wheretobuy_spdif.htmMake sure the board you're looking at has an optical daughterboard attachment (to attach your toslink cable) and does not use the LX variety of the 8738 (which doesn't support s/pdif in)
http://www.cmedia.com.tw/product/doc8738.htmBTW, the DAC in that chip isn't so good but if you're burning cds who cares? It plays no role in the transfer - only in listening on your pc.
You can verify bit perfect transfers by doing it twice and paste inverting one over the other, looking for null. EAC also has a wave compare feature that will let you know if any samples are off.
While we're bashing soundblaster stuff, it may be worth differentiating between
reclocking and
resampling.
Reclocking is done by virtually all consumer equipment - this just means accepting the data 'on the fly' vs. locking onto the source data clock. The bit values would not be changing. It may be possible to drop some if they aren't delivered in time, but this does not appear to be a problem I've run into.
Resampling is the evil one. This involves changing the bit values (changing the sampling frequency forces you to change the bit values).
In the case of Soundblaster cards, they all resample to 48k because that's the 'internal standard' that the chipset works with. So if you do your proposed transfer through a soundblaster you will go
44.1>resample to 48>resample to 44.1
unnecessary! The resample was designed more for speed than musicality.
Here's a good summary on the whole thing (but it is old and I think the issues of slave / master for a single soundcard setup are a thing of the past). Bottom line - the author thought it was still better to digitally resample than go through another a>d step.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul99/articles/pcmusician.htmA clue that a card is resampling - you should not be able to adjust the volume of the s/pdif signal. You may be able to adjust the pc volume, but when you look at your controls (mixer or whatever) you'll see sliders for the line-in, mic-in etc. There should be no slider for s/pdif - if there is...you are resampling the data to change the voume.
Let me throw an alternate suggestion at you - you're about to buy a minidisc deck with digital output (used I'm guessing) and a soundcard. That'll set you back almost as much as a Nomad Jukebox 3. I can't tell you how much I love doing firewire transfers - a whole show in 3 minutes - in data format so you can forget about all this bit perfect nonsense. And if you want to transfer your minidiscs and know somebody with a deck - just plug the optical out of the md into your Jukebox, record away and then bring it home for a firewire transfer. And if you want to upgrade later, you're set.
If you want to mail me one of your minidiscs, I can do a bit perfect transfer and you can grab it via ftp, burn a disc, compare to your soundcard transfer and decide if you care.
p.s. just because we're anal doesn't mean we like to spend lots of money!
david