BradLucky

Thanks to everyone for the great advice. I managed to get my optical connection recording. I'm not 100% what change that I made worked, but in Creative Audio Console, I turned on Bit Accurate > Enable Bit Accurate Recording. I also made sure Sound Setting in Win Vista Control Panel had SPDIF as my default recording device. I still don't get automatic file splits, but I found something even better: http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/. mp3splt can query against CDDB, using their Cue files in order to split a file perfectly (assuming there's no added/removed space before/after tracks). Even better yet, it NAMES the files appropriately and sets up all the metadata for the new MP3s. It has scads of options, based on you preferences, so files can be named whatever you want, etc. A lifesaver for me, no doubt. I hope this helps someone else.

Thanks for all the great info! You mention renting an RH1. Where would I be able to do that? I would absolutely prefer not to purchase a unit (as much as I would love to own one), as this is the only thing I will need it for. And how much does it cost to rent a MD player like that? I found the info about splitting tracks after the fact and Audacity does split tracks based on an amount of silence detected, so I'll have to still go in on some discs and do some manual splitting where the sound doesn't stop between tracks (thankfully, this is few and far between). My new question is whether or not there will be a noticeable difference in quality between optical and analog. I suspect there will be, but despite the fact that I can hear the audio from optical in via my speakers, I cannot seem to get it to record, and I may have to resort to RCA plugs. Thanks again for all your help!

I have an MDS-S707 deck unit with optical output and a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum with optical input. I am looking to copy a hundred or so MDs to my PC while retaining the track separations (i.e. I don't want to copy entire discs out to one audio file and have to split up the tracks manually after copying). I thought I could do this via the TOSLINK optical connection (just as CD to MD does a fine job at that), but I haven't been able to find any way to accomplish this. Can anyone help? I do not have a Net MD player, so I cannot run a copy via that method. All I have available are the optical and stereo in/out.

1. It has been quite some time since using this unit, but I titled hundreds of MDs back in the day. There is no way to use the remote that I remember (just looked at the remote again to see if I ever remembered being able to do it). It is possible to get quite quick with the AMS dial, knowing just how far to spin it to get to each letter. I'm not saying it's ideal or the best. 2. Wish I could answer this for you, but frankly, I have no idea.