Best way to drive integrated sound?

As you know the Asus P5K-E has on-board sound. Just out of interest I have hooked the output from this mobo up to a £600 Yamaha YSP-1100 Digital Sound Projector via a spdif fibre optic connection. Is it better to have the setting in the SoundMAX Digital HD Audio driver permanently wacked up to full volume and then make all adjustments for required volume on the Yamaha or should there be a bit of balancing between the two eg. mid volume on both?

I'm no audiophile but would assume, as the signal is staying austensibly digital, it would not matter in the slightest and midway settings simply offer the convenience of making further adjustments from the system tray icon. I'd guess that in an analogue world running something at max would create increased distortions which would then be amplified further down the line resulting in inferior sound. Hopefully somebody here can confirm or trash my assumption.

I would think your assumptions are pretty sound.....

Cirtainly an analogue signal quality (with a good amp) will generally be at its best at about 40%-75% volume settings.

With a digital output in theory it should not matter, but the output level is an actual volume level at some point, so I would limit the digital output from the PC into the external amp to about 80%.

However simple experimentation should quickly confirm whether or not this is 'piffle'.