I saw this post on alt.audio.minidisc and thought it was interesting for
those that may be curious on this newsgroup:

Any chance you can do an S/PDIF loopback recording test? I'm curious as to how badly it
butchers incoming S/PDIF signals, if at all (ie, whether it limits+resamples them ala the
SBLive! or keeps them intact ala the Audigy/Audigy2).

The easiest and cleanest way to notice the difference between what it's fed and what it records
is to saturate the heck out of a 48kHz wave file (for my SBLive 5.1 Platinum S/PDIF loopback
test, I used +18dB), play it back using foobar2000 or Winamp with the kernelstreaming output
plugin, and record from S/PDIF-In at 48kHz. Find a particularly nasty spot in the original,
zoom in 1:1, screenshot. Find the exact same spot in the recorded wave, zoom in 1:1, tweak the
viewable area until it's as close to being lined up as possible to the original, screenshot.
Overlay the two screenshots and note any major differences.

http://starseed.dyn.dhs.org/images/k.../spdifloop.gif (red=orig,black=rec)

If the results are similar to mine, gotta give its digital I/O a big thumbs-down..

-StArSeEd


It actually seems to do a decent job with S/PDIF signals! I followed
your instructions to the letter (used foobar2k w/kernel streaming for
playback.)

Saturated original wave:
http://www.geocities.com/minidisc_junge/saturation.gif
Loopback wave: http://www.geocities.com/minidisc_junge/loopback.gif
The two screenshots layered together:
http://www.geocities.com/minidisc_ju...saturation.gif

Thanks for the tip! -M

Just Sharing,
wrkit