Denon and Tascam allow you to set whether the SPDIF out is pre or post master, but as far as I know Pioneer has always lacked this feature. Not such a bad thing considering their goofy flexible unity/cue system they have that is made possible by the pgrm cue being post master. See, on the DJMs you can either treat the channel faders as having unity at 7 and the master at max, or you can treat max on the faders as unity and the master unity as less than max (around 2:15ish o'clock where channel meter and master meter match). It allows you to switch between studio fader/gain boost mode, or sort of DJ-style fader method. Hint, there's a reason A&H uses the latter on their DJ mixers and the former on their studio boards: safer with drunk djs. There's also the unfortunate fact that many DJs screw around with the master volume in-the-mix on Pioneers -- it should be covered up and taped over when set to unity by the sound guy (blue neutrik barrel works great for that), but I digress. Anyway, if the SPDIF out was pre, this "flexibility"-induced levels asymmetry that can happen with changes in the channel gains/trims to compensated for the master out changes would not sound very good. So, in this case, the lack of option is probably for the best. BTW, you can also just use the USB to record digitally.