Did I buy the wrong spdif cable?

[coplinger]

I went to Radio Shack & asked for 75 ohm video cable. What they gave me was Gold Series shielded AudioVideo cable. I attempt to hook up my tc electronics m300 to my m-audio audiophile & it doesn't work. No signal seems to be getting to the m300 & the audiophile control panel tells me S/PDIF Signal: Invalid or Not Present. Is this a cable issue or something else?

 

[Track Rat]

As long as it's 75 ohm video cable it should function. It's more than likely the way something is configured in software.

 

[coplinger]

Well, you're right it's not the cables-I now have good signal going from soundcard to m300, but nothing going from m300 to soundcard. There are no settings for digital out on the m300 & no settings for digital in on the audiophile. Master clock is set to internal on the soundcard (this is correct per m300 manual) Anything else I might be missing?

 

[geekgurl]

Well, you're right it's not the cables-I now have good signal going from soundcard to m300, but nothing going from m300 to soundcard. There are no settings for digital out on the m300 & no settings for digital in on the audiophile. Master clock is set to internal on the soundcard (this is correct per m300 manual) Anything else I might be missing?

I'm coming from the world of Pro Tools LE, but in that I also have to go under a "hardware" menu -- in the multitracking software -- and make sure a "sync" option is set to "RCA/SPDIF" rather than internal ... different than master clock perhaps? Maybe poke around the settings in your multitracker and see if there's any additional hardware setting you have to do there? What software are you recording into? If you don't get your answers here, ask what SPDIF settings you'd need to make for that software in the computers forum.

Ah, better living thru high technology. Good luck.

 

[jake-owa]

Both the recieving and sending bit rate and freqs need to be the same. Then like geekgurl said you need to chose a master and make sure the receiving device is synched to the master.

 

[jslator]

Well, you're right it's not the cables-I now have good signal going from soundcard to m300, but nothing going from m300 to soundcard. There are no settings for digital out on the m300 & no settings for digital in on the audiophile. Master clock is set to internal on the soundcard (this is correct per m300 manual) Anything else I might be missing?

Maybe this is a stupid question, but you are using two cables, right? One from the soundcard to the M300 and one from the M300 to the soundcard? It sounds like you don't have a cable going from S/PDIF-out on the M300 to the S/PDIF-in on the soundcard.

It doesn't sound like a problem with sync settings. A problem there wouldn't typically stop the audio, it would just give you audible "clicks".

 

[Jeyan]

What about the clock settings in the M300? IS teher an option to set it to external SPDIF?

 

[coplinger]

I'm coming from the world of Pro Tools LE, but in that I also have to go under a "hardware" menu -- in the multitracking software -- and make sure a "sync" option is set to "RCA/SPDIF" rather than internal ... different than master clock perhaps? Maybe poke around the settings in your multitracker and see if there's any additional hardware setting you have to do there? What software are you recording into? If you don't get your answers here, ask what SPDIF settings you'd need to make for that software in the computers forum.

Ah, better living thru high technology. Good luck.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I am using Vegas with an Audiophile soundcard (M-Audio Delta). The settings you are talking about are found in the Audiophile control panel, not in Vegas. I have Vegas listening to the Audiophile S/PDIF in, but there is no signal coming in. The M-Audio control panel, if I remember right (I'm not at home), automatically detects the incoming signal & determines sample rate. Mine is not detecting any incoming signal. I have the master clock on the m300 set to external, and yes, I am using 2 cables. When I get home, I'll poke around in Vegas & see if there's anything there, but if the sound card can't hear anything, I don't think any settings in Vegas would make any difference..

 

[kingofold]

I have the same thing going on

 

[tf5_bassist]

I went to Radio Shack & asked for 75 ohm video cable. What they gave me was Gold Series shielded Audio\Video cable. I attempt to hook up my tc electronics m300 to my m-audio audiophile & it doesn't work. No signal seems to be getting to the m300 & the audiophile control panel tells me S/PDIF Signal: Invalid or Not Present. Is this a cable issue or something else?

wait... you asked for a regular a/v cable to hook up the s/pdif on your gear? Last I checked (and i'm most likely completely wrong on this) that's not possible. Radioshack DOES carry digital coax in the 75 ohm variety (I bought one for the studio when i worked there), but hell, maybe they've disco'ed it since then.

But. When we went to hook up our Panasonic DAT unit to the CD burner, we got nothing as well. And if i remember correctly, the digital coaxial cable was directional... oddly enough. This may be the cause of your problems... but, don't quote me. just my thoughts. hope you get it working soon!

 

[Track Rat]

Digital coaxial cable??? Directional?????There's no such thing. Any video grade 75 ohm cable properly terminated will work. The better the quality of the cable and connectors (BNC or RCA) the better it will function.

 

[Wife]

s/pdf cable

I had the same problem a few years ago. Rather than using a 75 ohm cable, just try a regular rca audio cable. That solved my problem, it may work for you. If not, perhaps your software doesn't automatically recognize incoming digital signals, so you may need to adjust it to do so. Hope this helps.
Lynn

 

[tf5_bassist]

Digital coaxial cable??? Directional?????There's no such thing. Any video grade 75 ohm cable properly terminated will work. The better the quality of the cable and connectors (BNC or RCA) the better it will function.

Ahh, okay. at least, i thought it was directional... there was a tag on one end, with an arrow facing towards the tag. strange. thanks for the correction.