Behringer ADA8000 ADAT removal

[znanjeiimanje]

I own an ADA8000. Nothing special, but it serves it's purpose. Now I would like to remove the ADAT part. I would like to have the signal direct from the preamp to the XLR connector in the back.

Has anyone done this before? i think it is possible but I am not 100% sure.

Here is also the schematic, so if anyone has any ideas....

http://www.gyraf.dk/schematics/Behringer_ada8000_analouge.PDF

my only doubt is that it will not work in the end.

 

[RawDepth]

No, it does not work that way. The xlr's in the front are not connected to the xlr's in the back. Signal will not pass through the unit like that unless you force it to, by connecting a (loopback) ADAT cable from the output to the input. But then you are going through the A/D and D/A conversion redundantly. (Possible signal degrade.)

 

[znanjeiimanje]

thank you for your reply.

I wanted to bypass the ADAT section alltogether.

Do you think taking the signal from before the ADAT section (after TL074) and sending it directly to the output would work?

I'm a little worried on ADAT sucking tone in 2 conversions

 

[mshilarious]

thank you for your reply.

I wanted to bypass the ADAT section alltogether.

Do you think taking the signal from before the ADAT section (after TL074) and sending it directly to the output would work?

I'm a little worried on ADAT sucking tone in 2 conversions

You don't really want a preamp with 1K output impedance, I would swap out those resistors. There are no clamping diodes on the TL074 (because it wasn't intended to interface with the outside world), I like to see those on an output. But hey, Behri didn't need those or output caps on the out, so what the hey? But I like to make sure stuff doesn't break if phantom accidentally gets patched into an output.

You need to pull signal before the caps on the outs to the ADC input because the ADC input pins will have DC bias.

Be aware that the ADC is only looking for a voltage swing of 4Vpp, which equates to +3dBV (essentially what Behri says on the spec sheet). The output amps should provide gain, I think the schemo might be a bit off there. So if you want a more robust output, yank the ADC and jump from the input TL074 to the output TL074. Then you can dispense with the interstage caps and stick caps on the output instead (if you are so inclined).

 

[Richard Monroe]

Yes, it works just fine. All you do is connect the ADAT out on the back of the 8000 to the ADAT in on the back of the 8000, and the digital signal from each preamp 1-8 will be converted back to analog and fed to the XLR outputs 1-8. There are some patching configurations where I need to do this, particularly for headphone mixes, or when I'm using the 8000 as a preamp for talkback mics.-Richie

PS: Sorry, I just realized that you understand the above and are trying to avoid the double conversion. Frankly, the 8000 is not such a great preamp that it makes a big difference. I've used it both ways, and can't hear a significant difference. It might "suck tone" as you say, but it sucks basically the same amount of tone both ways. It's not worth rewiring the whole unit experimentally.