Audio card INPUTS : Which is better? 1/4" TRS and TS or SPDIF (coax digital)

[jp008]

Which do you think is better for audio card INPUTS (not outputs):

1/4" TRS and TS
or
SPDIF (coax digital)

1. The balanced 1/4" TRS input jack on the audio card is rated at being 104 to around 107 dBA SNR.

2. We all know the digital coax SPDIF input is basically 1's and 0's.

3. Both inputs are 24-bit / 44khz or 48khz

So.. which one do you think might be better or worse? Would they sound different and if so, then how?

-Jp22 (008)

[BertKoor]

"Best" is the one that works!

With the analog input you know it always works, and you know the A/D converter specs. A SNR better than 100dB is good enough for rock'nroll.

With the digital input it does not always work. For instance if S/PDif is sending @ 44.1kHz but your project is 48 or 96, then no dice. And whether the external converter is better or worse: do you know?
One exception is digital synths. If these have a digital output, you might as well use it. Then you skip da + ad conversion.

[jp008]

good enough for rock'nroll.

Meaning?

How would you say analog 1/4" TRS inputs compare to SPDIF digital coax inputs ?

More bluntly put, do you think there's any general difference in clarity at all (when the analog is over 100 dBA SNR) ?

[BertKoor]

good enough for rock'nroll.

Meaning?

Meaning it's good enough for Rock'nRoll. If you think EDM or another genre puts other requirements on the hardware than Rock'nRoll, then you're wrong. Get the thing recorded and move on. There's usually much much more important things to worry about. If your recording quality was that bad, it would stick out as a sore thumb already, and you would definitely know about it.

How would you say analog 1/4" TRS inputs compare to SPDIF digital coax inputs?

That is by definition unknown, because it depends on what else is in the chain before SPDIF: the preamp, AD converter... If you really want to know, then go measure the signal path with RightMark Audio Analyser so you can compare them both.

More bluntly put, do you think there's any general difference in clarity at all (when the analog is over 100 dBA SNR) ?

Clarity in technical terms is the frequency response. If frequencies above 8kHz are attennuated, you're losing sparkle & clarity. You can have a recording that doesn't lack any clarity, but with a very bad signal/noise ratio. You can also have a recording with an excellent signal/noise ratio but very bad clarity. So there is no correlation between these two.