From: Chris Holt <amiga2k_at_cox.net>
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 01:42:36 -0500

----- Original Message -----
From: "brendan hack" <bendy_at_bendys.com>
To: <rockbox_at_cool.haxx.se>
Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2002 12:51 AM
Subject: Re: More digital recording tests


> Hey Jed old buddy,
>
> You do need an RCA to stereo 3.5 for the Archos recorder. Standard S/PDIF
ports are only uni-directional, they either do input or output. The Archos
S/PDIF port is non-standard and is both an input and output port in the one
plug. Basically they are using a stereo 3.5 port with the right channel as
input and the left channel as output (or vice-versa, I can't remember which
off the top of my head). So you will need to use a dual RCA to stereo 3.5
and plug the red into yer S/PDIF out and white into S/PDIF in (or the other
way round). You might be able to get away with a mono plug but it's not
really the best solution.
-----

The Archos port is nonstandard with respect to the connector (as are many
MiniDisc recorders) but using a single connector for both input and output
does not violate the spec.
The Digital in/out jack on the Archos is only a 2 wire jack, so I don't see
where using a stereo patch cable will benefit you any. It only creates an
added step of finding out which of the two RCA connectors must be used.
Archos describes using the supplied patch cable for digital recording and
playback in the manual as a convienence, I believe.

---
> As for gold or not gold you should probably go for gold if you're worried
about quality. Your cable will also affect the sound quality. I've always
found it strange that cables and adapters can affect S/PDIF quality. I mean,
it's a digital signal so I would expect that what goes in one end of the
cable should be what comes out the other end. The only way I can think that
cables would affect the signal would be if S/PDIF didn't have any error
correction. Does anyone know if that's the case or could point me to a
website for more info on S/PDIF?
---
Yes there is a parity bit.  Degredation of the signal can come from clock
jitter (especially if the input is unbuffered and not reclocked), or very
bad connections.
http://documents.epanorama.net/documents/audio/spdif.html
Chris

Received on 2002-11-12