Exactly how am I suppose to use the digital in/out? HELP!

So I got everything set up nice and running into my mixer, the four mono outs and the stereo outs. However, I want to make use of my digital in/out. As I understand it, this is the same thing as my stereo out right? So aside from sound quality, is there any reason to use the digital out? Also, where do I connect it on my mixer? A link to my mixer is below.

http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL753/420 ... 774727.jpg

your mixer doesn't have a digital input. you need to look for one with a S/PDIF connection.

i only use it for sampling to the mpc, or for tracking out to pc. kinda stinks that most of my digital enabled sources is optical. hopefully the next interface i get will have both. also its not quite the same cable as a normal rca wire. the signal level is lower and maybe the impedance? check wikipedia for spdif. itll sort you out

Any RCA cable that's meant to carry video signals should work fine -- as long as theres another set of digital I/O connections to plug it into that is....

i've been using standard RCA cable to hook the digital OUT of my mixer to the MPC and it is significantly lower in volume than simply using analog cables....

electric dragon wrote:i've been using standard RCA cable to hook the digital OUT of my mixer to the MPC and it is significantly lower in volume than simply using analog cables....

Yeah, the gain is horrible when using standard RCA cables as a substitute. You need to get one that is actually SPDIF or it will be way too quiet. They are only like 10-15 bucks

yes, the correct cable in this case easily solves the problem. i was merely responding to eMuz suggestion that you could use any RCA cable. technically you CAN connect using regular RCA cables but the drop in gain makes it somewhat pointless to do so.....

electric dragon wrote:yes, the correct cable in this case easily solves the problem. i was merely responding to eMuz suggestion that you could use any RCA cable. technically you CAN connect using regular RCA cables but the drop in gain makes it somewhat pointless to do so.....

Re-read that post. I did not say "any rca cable" I said "any rca cable that's meant to carry video signals" i.e. a shielded coaxial one. S/pdif does not use nearly as much bandwidth as a video signal. I use a video cable for this purpose all the time and suffer no losses whatsoever. There's nothing special about those "sold for S/pdif" cables besides the price.