Back to Digital PBs again... (calling all Pros!)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Blue Bear Sound
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Blue Bear Sound

Blue Bear Sound

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Well... if you recall I discovered the M-Audio Digipatch 12*6 doesn't support 20-bit Lightpipe signals... so I returned it to the store and re-did all my backups (that had passed thru the unit, truncating the signal to 16-bit)

Trouble is - I still need the routing flexibility for Lightpipe connections....

The Z*Sys Detangler will work but is overkill for what I need it to do - it does conversion as well and all I need is a router! (for $2000, it isn't worth it!)

The only remaining option so far is Hosa's unit. I've called them and talked to their engineers about the bit-size and all I can get from them is - "yeah, it *should* be fine!"

This doesn't sound certain enough -- I need TO KNOW for sure.... Any of you guys know, or know of a way to find out or if in fact the Hosa unit does support 24-bit or at least 20-bit?

Thanks...

Bruce
 
Yo Bruce:

Indeed you're in over my head; however, I read some obscure reports about Klotz cables -- not here in the states yet. They might be in Canada; they might be what you want? Klotz is THEE cable in Europe from a few scattered reports.

But with your contacts, maybe you can find out.

Happy St. Patrick's Day
Green Hornet
 
GH... thanks for the try but it's not cables that I'm looking at, it's a digital patchbay....

Bruce
 
No idea- there's just no info available out there other than the manual, which is useless: http://www.hosatech.com/PBPMANUAL.pdf

I'd say, shoot the moon. Buy it from a place like Full Compass that will offer you a 100% credit if it doesn't meet your needs. Try it, see if it truncates: if it does, jettison it.

From the manual, there's definitely active circuitry on each module card- but not much. It may be that it's just simple enough to simply regenerate the signal without inspecting the data stream. In which case, maybe it'll work just great... The hard thing will be to instrument it well enough to know if you're getting a higher bit error rate because of jitter or timing skew due to the asynchronous repeaters in the modules. Who knows? It's all the grand experiment...
 
Yeah Skip, I agree... it's not like it'd be a expensive experiment!

Do you know if there software that can "sniff" the word size of an incoming signal?

Bruce
 
You're a Cubase guy too these days, aren't you? Can't you do that in Wavelab? I seem to recall that you can examine samples as raw data. I haven't ever needed to, but I'm sure that you can, somewhere in there. I'm too much of a neophyte with this here newfangled DAW stuff...

Probably any direct audio file editor will let you see the sample data with enough resolution to tell that the bottom byte has been truncated. You have some example data there to work with, too!

I'll check tonight and see if you can do it with Wavelab. Can't do it now, though. I really ought to do some paying work sometime today...
 
Hmmm... good idea... I'll look at it too... thanks for the tip Skippy!

Bruce
 
Hey Bruce, Check out Bob Katz site or email him, Ive emailed questions and he is pretty good about getting back. I saw somewhere that he made a homemade bit scope for checking equipment accuracy...I/O issues with DAW converters or something along those lines.


http://www.digido.com/bitscope.html

Peace,
Dennis
 
Great find Dennis! Thanks!

I'll check those links Gidge.. thanks too!

Bruce
 
Yeah I know that Fostex unit -- but it is not optical Lightpipe -- it is optical S/PDIF.... doesn't handle ADAT at all!

Thanks though...

Bruce
 
Unfortunately, only Z*Sys, which includes a format converter for $2000! That's about $1500 of overkill for what I need it for!

I know... just the HOSA name bugs me too, but no one else makes what I need!

Bruce
 
Freakin' Cool!

The Hammerfall card includes a digital I/O tester... all kinds of functions INCLUDING -- a word display showing bit-level I/O.... means I have a way of testing the bitstream!

Excellent! When I get that Hosa unit in I'll test it and post the results in case anyone else gets into the same predicament!

Bruce
 
Shit. Digicheck. Forgot all about it... Sorry, Bruce. Glad you found it.

Easier than hooking up a scope, no?
 
Yeah... you told me all about it but when we were walking thru the setup, I couldn't get a reading on it at the time! I'm re-configuring the I/O tonight and the utility works perfectly!

Very cool!!! :)

Bruce
 
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