[wattershed]

Five has it covered...I just wanted to add that since that MD doesn't have a digital out (which manifests itself usually in the form of an optical out), no matter what signal you feed the input device, and no matter what it does to it before passing it along to either a) the soundcard or b) the hard drive, it will still be an analog signal at heart. In other words, analog > analog and analog > digital won't produce different results.

Unfortunately, the only way to get a digital out would be by using another unit with digital out capabilities.