I have an older Sony amplifier I want to use for my computer, paired with some sort of speakers. While planning, I’m thinking: should I just use my motherboard’s line out to the amp, or would I be better utilising the S/PDIF header on my mobo to get the audio digitally to the amp?
Motherboard analog audio out is often noisy and generally not great. If you have an easy way to use SPDIF, coax or optical, you’d circumvent all that noise. If your amplifier has SPDIF reclocking, then even jitter would be eliminated. Even without that, chances are e SPDIF will be significantly better than analog out.
Coax is much better
Does it matter if you have reclocking on the DAC side?
You’re right - not really. But coax can carry a much higher bitrate at longer distance at lower cost