Using optical spdif with minidisc

soul-synthesis · Post by **soul-synthesis** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 10:33 pm

just a little tip i discovered when trying to hook up my sony minidisc walkman to my pulsar 2 via optical spdif.

right click the 'spdif dest' module in sfp and select the 'consumer' mode (default is professional). Some minidisc recorders may need this setting. Sometimes you get 'copy protection' errors on a recording attempt if it's not set in the right mode.

It took me a while to figure this out, i dont think it's included in the manual?!? (i couldnt find it).

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 10:46 pm

Thanks, I'd never seen or heard of that. After loading the SP-DIF Dest module, I found the SP-DIF mode option that you mention. It was on 'consumer' here by default...

Anyone have a clue what the difference is between 'consumer' and 'professional'?

I had some problems where no digital stream PC<->MD were possible, let's try changing this option next time...

soul-synthesis · Post by **soul-synthesis** » Mon Jan 12, 2004 11:09 pm

i get default as professional. I think i know why. I loaded the 'sp-dif dest' module first and then toggled the 'opt sp-dif' in the 'samplerate' menu afterwards. If you toggle and then load the module it's default is 'consumer'.

tricky stuff

braincell · Post by **braincell** » Tue Jan 13, 2004 8:47 am

From: Arny Krueger (arnyk@flash.net)
Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
Date: 2000/08/09

It is not unusual for consumer audio equipment digital inputs to have problems with the digital outputs of professional equipment. The most common problem is simply no audio output from the consumer digital equipment.

Sometimes hooking consumer digital audio equipment to the digital output of professional equipment works, and sometimes it does not. (and vice-versa) This seems to depend mostly on the particular equipment being interfaced. Please notice that these issues exist when other combinations of equipment work properly. IOW the sound card can work fine with other pro equipment, and the consumer audio equipment can work with other consumer equipment, and some combinations work and others don't.

When mixing and matching pro and consumer equipment there are two general kinds of issues.

(1) The signal interface which is: Toslink, AES/EBU, or SP/DIF.

(2) The signal content which always seems to follow the general format for serial digital audio, but varies more or less arbitrarily
in terms of details, particularly flag bits.

To better understand the general issues please review:

http://www.hut.fi/Misc/Electronics/docs ... spdif.html

IME it is often possible to drive a consumer SP/DIF input with a pro AES/EBU output by doing the simplest thing - find a XLR to RCA
adaptor and just plug things together. No guarantees! It may not work
at all.

The second stage of complexity is to try to use a transformer-based device to match the two. No guarantees! It may not work at all.