Ken - You're right. When I was talking about the 3.5's being analog, I was talking about when they are audio outputs....which I thought was a correct line of thinking. However, I had forgotten that during my early searches for audio cards that some manufacturers do SPDIF via 3.5 plug and not optical/coax. I was left with the same question as the poster......so I just moved on to another card that had an optical ouput.