SHOW OF HANDS: Who uses S/PDIF here?

[elsongs]

It seems as though every audio interface on the market that boasts more than 4 in/outputs has two of those in/outputs being an S/PDIF digital in/out. Am I wrong in saying that's a total jip to the consumer? Most of us when referring to audio that comes in from or goes out of the box just use the analog I/O. I know some people use the ADAT interface but that's another matter, and that's only an issue for the interfaces that have more than 8 ins/outs. Or do we actually use S/PDIF?

[MikeRivers]

I have a Benchmark D/A converter with a couple of S/PDIF inputs. My Lynx L22 audio interface has AES/EBU and S/PDIF (as well as analog) outputs, as does my TASCAM CD recorder. I have the Benchmark analog output going to my monitoring switcher. Mostly it's just for show - in theory the Benchmark analog output should be a tad better than the Lynx, though I can't hear enough difference to care. But it's useful for comparing a CDR from a project mix to the DAW project mix.

[ggm1960]

I can remember using it during home recording although it's been so long ago I don't remember the details. As I recall it was rather persnickety since it also incorporates clocking where one will be the master and the others need to play along. I believe in the end I just decided it was more trouble than it was worth.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'll use it if I need to for something, but I can't remember the last time I needed to use it... probably for transferring something from an old DAT tape to my DAW.

 

It's much less useful than ADAT lightpipe IMO. And yes, your slave device needs to be able to lock to the embedded clock signal.

[nice keetee]

[onelife]

I have a couple of interfaces and a Yamaha AW4416 that all have S/PDIF ports. Sometimes I have reason to connect two of them together so I use S/PDIF rather than using two of the audio ports on each unit.