I owned this dac, and a dac 3.7, it does digitize the analog signal, I used my dac as a pre amp with my turntable for years, even though the IDEA of it sounds wrong, the overall sound quality is very good. I auditioned many analog pre amps that actually did not sound as good (much higher noise floor, hum and hiss) only the Rogue audio RP 7 and the Asthetix calypso sounded better in my system.