Can I put any A/D converter together with any sound card?

[karambos]

I'm in the market for a new soundcard.

There's an aspect of sound cards that I don't get. Namely, can I put any old 8-channel A/D D/A converter break out box with any old 8-in, 8-out sound card?

For example, can I attach a Behringer Ultragain Pro8 ADA8000 (http://www.behringer.com/02_products/prodindex.cfm?id=ADA8000) to a RMI DIGI96/8 (http://www.rme-audio.com/english/digi96/digi968.htm)

?

[wogg]

The two examples you've listed will work fine together. The key is the interface connection type.

The Behringer unit has ADAT light pipe output, which is supported by the RME card. You could then upgrade to any A/D system with lightpipe or 2 channel S/PDIF and connect it to your RME card. PreSonus, for example, makes some excellent lightpipe output 8 channel mic-pre cpmnverter combos.

[bubba freaktree]

wogg's got it.

if it's an analog connection, make sure your +4/-10 levels are matched.

if it's a digital connection, make sure it's matched sp-dif>>sp-dif, aes/ebu>>aes-ebu, lightpipe>>lightpipe, etc.

you can't mix analog with digital.

[karambos]

and what would you recommend; analogue or digital? (I recognise this may be a matter of personal taste but I mean what are the differences in terms of the signal to noise ratio and stuff? Can one say that digital is "better quality" than analogue?)

Cheers

[Keaves Sharpi]

well if you're going into a DAW, it's gonna be digital in the end anyway. no analog/digital argument here.

if you're going to make a signal digital, always do it sooner rather than later.