Owing Roland gear and Lexicon rack gear, that had digital ins and outs, I was surprised in the limited usefulness of those ins and outs. I did not notice much of a difference when I ran the stuff just into my analog rack stuff and mixer versus keeping it “pure and in the box”. However my gear, mixer, and A/D convertors were of strong quality. I ended up wanting to use my analog stuff to fatten up and eq things anyway. I am not saying that straight wire approach is not useful or for some setups very cool, I am just throwing in my limited experiences based on my approach to things.