korz
12-16-2005, 01:28 PM
I'm building a brand new system. I just got the PC up and running and have gotten the primary interface installed (hw & drivers).
I've got an EMU 1820M as my primary interface and then I want to connect a Behringer ADA8000 (essentially, it's just an 8channel-analogue-to-ADAT and ADAT-to-8channel-analogue unit) and an ART DI/O 2channel tube preamp with digital output unit.
They all have BNC word clock connectors. The EMU has both in and out, the Behringer has a switchable single BNC (actually, it says "WC slave," "ADAT slave," "44.1k master," and "48k master."), and the ART has just a BNC word clock input.
Now, I've read where if you connect two units together via ADAT, you can use the ADAT clock as your sync. That explains the "ADAT slave" position on the Behringer.
My questions:
1. I would suspect that the EMU would have the most accurate clock because the other two units are a fraction of the price, but I'm not going to take that as a given. I'm going to measure the accuracy of the Behringer and the EMU clocks with a scope I brought home from work. But let's say the EMU's turns out to be the most solid clock. I can then use the word clock to connect all three units, run two ADAT optical links between the Behringer and the EMU and run S/PDIF from the ART to the EMU. Voila! 18 channels of synced input and 16 channels of synced output. Am I missing something?
2. Alternatively, I suppose I could use the ADAT clock to sync the EMU and Behringer and the EMU literature says that the word clock transmits all the time, regardless of what you've selected as your sync source, so I would imagine I could sync the ART to the other two using the word clock. Is this likely to be better or worse than solution 1? If I choose the EMU to be the master and use ADAT to sync the Behringer and EMU, is it correct to assume that the EMU's word clock would be synced to the ADAT also and I could use it to sync the ART? In other words, when the EMU is the master, are all the clocks in the EMU (ADAT and word clock) internally synced?
3. The Behringer can only go as high as 48k, even if it is not the master clock. The ART will go as high as 96k and the EMU 192k, but at the higher frequencies, the EMU can do less and less channels simultaneously. I think that 48k is enough for what I'm doing, but if I use solution #2, presuming it works, it would be easier for me to pull the Behringer out of the system and use the ART and EMU together for 10 channels of 96k... actually, I have two ART DI/O's, so I could connect one via S/PDIF and one via ADAT and run 12 channels at 96k. Do you think that being able to to go that route would make solution #2 any more desirable?
Any other thoughts?
Thanks.
Al.
I've got an EMU 1820M as my primary interface and then I want to connect a Behringer ADA8000 (essentially, it's just an 8channel-analogue-to-ADAT and ADAT-to-8channel-analogue unit) and an ART DI/O 2channel tube preamp with digital output unit.
They all have BNC word clock connectors. The EMU has both in and out, the Behringer has a switchable single BNC (actually, it says "WC slave," "ADAT slave," "44.1k master," and "48k master."), and the ART has just a BNC word clock input.
Now, I've read where if you connect two units together via ADAT, you can use the ADAT clock as your sync. That explains the "ADAT slave" position on the Behringer.
My questions:
1. I would suspect that the EMU would have the most accurate clock because the other two units are a fraction of the price, but I'm not going to take that as a given. I'm going to measure the accuracy of the Behringer and the EMU clocks with a scope I brought home from work. But let's say the EMU's turns out to be the most solid clock. I can then use the word clock to connect all three units, run two ADAT optical links between the Behringer and the EMU and run S/PDIF from the ART to the EMU. Voila! 18 channels of synced input and 16 channels of synced output. Am I missing something?
2. Alternatively, I suppose I could use the ADAT clock to sync the EMU and Behringer and the EMU literature says that the word clock transmits all the time, regardless of what you've selected as your sync source, so I would imagine I could sync the ART to the other two using the word clock. Is this likely to be better or worse than solution 1? If I choose the EMU to be the master and use ADAT to sync the Behringer and EMU, is it correct to assume that the EMU's word clock would be synced to the ADAT also and I could use it to sync the ART? In other words, when the EMU is the master, are all the clocks in the EMU (ADAT and word clock) internally synced?
3. The Behringer can only go as high as 48k, even if it is not the master clock. The ART will go as high as 96k and the EMU 192k, but at the higher frequencies, the EMU can do less and less channels simultaneously. I think that 48k is enough for what I'm doing, but if I use solution #2, presuming it works, it would be easier for me to pull the Behringer out of the system and use the ART and EMU together for 10 channels of 96k... actually, I have two ART DI/O's, so I could connect one via S/PDIF and one via ADAT and run 12 channels at 96k. Do you think that being able to to go that route would make solution #2 any more desirable?
Any other thoughts?
Thanks.
Al.