I am thinking about buying
4' Mogami 2964 75ohm RCA S/PDIF SPDIF w/ Neutrik Gold

http://cgi.ebay.com/4-Mogami-2964-75ohm ... 27afac36d9

Not really get your question but if you want to connect audio source like SP-404 to S/PDIF input it's a no-no.
S/PDIF i/o is pure digital just like optic but on more consumer level.

yeah you cant plug an analog signal into a digital receiver or vice versa.. wont work..


RCA is just a type of connector... you can run a digital or analog signal through it, but you can't plug one end into digital and one end into analog. (well you can, but it wont work like you want it to)

What's going to happen? Loss of volume? Loss of quality? No signal coming through at all?

I keep reading about people who use all kinds of converters, even though indeed analogue to analogue and digital to digital.

No signal at all is what will happen if you connect a digital output to an analog input or vice versa. If you're unlucky, you'll fry stuff. It's just wrong technically.

You COULD use a converter (A/D for routing the SP output into a digital input for example), but would it make sense? You're better off using your computer's audio interface and its inbuilt converters or whatever else you're recording to. How much would you spend on an external converter anyways? More that on your soundcard? I doubt it.