I just had this happen when i tried to use a piece of crap c-media AOpen card thats supposed to be bit perfect. First transfer...entire right channel had static/noise. Second transfer..sounded fine through computer and headphones..put it in a high end system..blaaahhh..sounds like crap. Added some kind of diginoise/brickwalling effect. Went back to the old soundcard...transferred fine. I'm willing to bet its the soundcard or a driver issue.
he he he....trivia time:
What do the DIO 2448, Aopen mentioned above, Zoltrix Nightingale and a few other inexpensive 'bit perfect' cards all have in common?
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They're different implementations of the CMedia 8738 chip. Capable of bit perfect s/pdif transfers when properly setup. The problems you describe are common and fixed by changing drivers, and if you're having dropouts, by lowering the graphics card acceleration setting in Windows. The soundcard is sensitive to the extra bus traffic that occurs when the acceleration is maxed out. The location of this setting depends on your OS and I don't know ME. Probably under
display properties, settings, advanced. Back off on the slider.
I also found it best to leave your computer alone while transferring with this card and turn off all apps.