Line In to Optical Out recordings -- best quality wanted

[1kyle]

I've got a MZ-N10 Net MD (love the really thin model) as well as a Hi-MD NHF-800.

Now I am trying to digital copy a MDLP Minidisc from the MZ-N10 to my HI-MD unit

The MZ-N10 has a nice Line Out (settable in the menu to Headphone / Line out) -- option so I know I can get the best possible analog signal out.

OK this is analog I know --but If I plug it in to the Line In on my Audigy 2 ZS sound card

http://www.theregister.com/2004/12/22/revi...ve_audigy_2_zs/

and plug the NHF-800 to the Optical Out of the Audigy sound card will I get a better quality recording by recording on the computer in 24-bit/96kHz WAV ( the old audigy I believe had limit of 48 kHz ) and then uploading to the NHF-800 .

Or is it better to simply plug the NHF-800 into the optical output of the card. Does the Optical output have a lower quality than the 24-bit 96 khz I can record at.

Playback on this card is rated up to 24 bit 192 kHz so in theory using the card's internal A/D converter and plugging into the optical out should lead to a better quality copy -- or have I missed something here.

Also if I use the optical out should I set the mixer controls to anything special or leave everything as "neutral" as possible i.e around half way for everything provided the recording volume is sufficient.

BTW for anybody with Nero by using the Drive Image software bundled with Nero you can mount a virtual CD drive and then you can rip the CD to digitally load to a Minidisc -- you don't actually need to burn to a physical CD -- I think there's quite a lot of stuff on this all over the Forums -- of course the drawback is it's real time only

.

( Briefly you create your WAV recording, edit so it'll fit on a CD or a set of CD's and then you use Nero to create your Audio CD's -- burn as Images --don't actually burn a physical CD. Then mount the image with Nero's Drive Image and the computer is "poodle faked" into thinking it's a real CD and can be played / ripped or whatever. If you have the Hi-MD units this CD can be uploaded to your MD as well).

Help / answers would be appreciated. Thanks