Electrically, the Edirol UA25EX should work when using an optical cable, as would almost any other interface that can input S/PDIF data on optical or on coax (with a converter). However, I think that with these older interfaces you are in danger of hitting driver problems when trying to run with Windows 10 or 11.

I've done many DAT tape transfers and never had problems, but then I was using my RME FireFace 400, for which RME has been excellent in keeping the drivers updated. You might want to see if you can find a second-hand RME box (e.g. UCX) that would give you a greater chance of it working without problems.

Boswell wrote:
Electrically, the Edirol UA25EX should work when using an optical cable, as would almost any other interface that can input S/PDIF data on optical or on coax (with a converter). However, I think th

Thanks for the heads up on the Fireface, RME makes the best audio interfaces - will take a look on ebay. We have a 1394 port on the PC. There is a UA25EX driver for Windows 10 on it's Roland support page. We might take a chance on it. Last night we did some analog to digital transfers. They won't be used for further production or copyright etc so I think he's going to just go that route. 

We transferred using analog XLR outputs on the SV\-3800 to the Ui24R. The gain on the Ui24R was at either all the way down or just slightly raised. The resulting .wav files have good dynamic range and sound good. 

It's good that you got the job done in a way that was satisfactory for your present purposes. However, from this thread you now have the information to perform bit-accurate copies, should that be necessary in the future.