Did you check all the settings that pertain to the S/PDIF output? Press the Outputs button and down arrow to the last page. If they are correct, how are your 1/4" Outputs set (the first page)? Perhaps your 1/4" Outs are set to something other then Direct? You'll notice that you can only set the S/PDIF to one of the Direct output types or dry but you can set the 1/4" Outs to Direct, Combo, Stack, etc. So if the 1/4" outs are set to something other than Direct you'll get a big difference in sound when compared to the S/PDIF output. Hope that helps.