Will quality suffer

[thyristor44]

Hello

I am getting digital audio out my laptop usb, its converted to optical digital in a usb sound card and then optically into a dac and so into my amp.

The usb sound card has dual digital out and I am going to put this into a optical to usb convertor and looping back into the laptop to be recorded.

Question is as everything is pure digital will I end up with the same quality. Main reason is to record iplayer.

Thanks

thyristor44

[flatmap]

No expert, but it is possible to introduce errors into the stream in the interface to and from the DAC.

 

There is software to directly capture the audio stream, though I don't know if this fits your purpose

or not. On Mac OS, one such option is Audio HiJack from Rogue Audio. There must be similar on

Windows, but not up to speed there.

[Sam Lord]

I am getting digital audio out my laptop usb, its converted to optical digital in a usb sound card and then optically into a dac and so into my amp.

 

If your laptop has USB 2.0 output, then you could expect some loss of sound quality by the extra optical conversion. The reason is that asynchronous USB connections allow the clock of the DAC to govern the rate of incoming data. Your optical circuit defeats that function. Higher-quality data buffering and reclocking circuits in or in front of the DAC can greatly reduce the damage from the loss of DAC-sourced clocking, but seldom eliminate it. However, you can still achieve excellent sound with your method.

[thyristor44]

If your laptop has USB 2.0 output, then you could expect some loss of sound quality by the extra optical conversion. The reason is that asynchronous USB connections allow the clock of the DAC to govern the rate of incoming data. Your optical circuit defeats that function. Higher-quality data buffering and reclocking circuits in or in front of the DAC can greatly reduce the damage from the loss of DAC-sourced clocking, but seldom eliminate it. However, you can still achieve excellent sound with your method.

I think the output dac may only be usb1 but I am still experimenting