Currently I'm only interested in SPDIF-out anyway, so that sounds good.

I assume this is with the cmpci driver, I have a 'budget' CM8738 card:

cmpci0 at pci0 dev 8 function 0: CMI8738 PCI Audio Device
cmpci0: interrupting at irq 5
audio1 at cmpci0: full duplex, mmap, independent

Is there any magic in mixerctl(1) to get the SPDIF port to output? Running
mixerctl(1) against this card does not show anything related that hits at
it.

My card did not have the SPDIF interface supplied, but there is space for 
the header to plug in on the card, so it might be possible that the chip is
strapped not to provide the functionality?

--et

> 
> I have a audio card with a C-Media 8738 chip plus the optical tos-link
> SPDIF interface. I use it only for SPDIF-out with my MD-Recorder. I'm
> not sure whether SPDIF-in works.
> 
> HTH
> Michael