Digital Monitoring

[dstryrwiz]

For those of you that normally work with digital monitoring, or know about it, I need a little advice and help. I have a Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 and I'll be connecting it to a pair of M-Audio Studiophile DSM3s and I wanted to know if there was an advantage to digital monitoring as the DSM3s support digital monitoring up to 192kHz sample rates and I'll be recording in a 96kHz sample rate, or if I should just run analog outs to it. Also I wished to know even exactly how to set up digital monitoring, from exactly which cables to use (as I know they're RCA connectors, but beyond that I don't know the cables, although I thought they would be AES/EBU cables, but is there a difference between those and S/PDIF), to how to set up my monitoring outputs to be sent through my S/PDIF out for main monitoring. Thank you to anyone who can be of help, and I really appreciate it in advance.

[albee1952]

Kind of hard to say at the quality level we are talking about. I could see an improvement by going thru some "first class" converters, but I doubt that's what we have in your M-Audio's, my 003 or the Saffire. It simply moves the conversion process from one box(your interface) to another box(the speakers). As for cables, you can buy quality SPDIF digital cables with RCA plugs(and you should if you decide to go that route). As nice as those speakers may be, I doubt the converters are any better than your(or my) interface(just an opinion BTW).

[dstryrwiz]

Off topic, but I just noticed your rig and I wondered if you ever tried running up to 16 inputs at once with up to 32 outputs, or if you haven't if you think your computer would be able to support that. I know someone whose been throwing around the idea of getting an iMac with similar specs and he asked me if Pro Tools 9 on the iMac would be able to support that as he likes doing his mixing on an external console, so he needs the 32 outputs. If you know if that would work, let me know. As for with the cables, I was looking at getting Mogami W3080 cables with Neutrik NF2C-B/2 ProFi connectors and I wasn't sure if that's the right setup for that, as I know the S/PDIF cable is supposed to transmit a stereo signal, and I wasn't sure if that cable would be able to do that, or if it would only transmit in mono, so if you can let me know, that would be great. Thanks again.