Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

I know that it is good recording practice to get the hottest signal 
from the source without clipping to get a good singal to noise 
ratio.  Is this required for SPDIF?  I am thinking that since the 
connection is digital I should be able to record from the MP-7 then 
normalize the recordings on my PC without boosting noise.  Does 
anyone have experience with this? It will save me a lot of time vs 
editing all presets and boosting the AMP VOL there.

Thanks,

Kris