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Post by svart on Jan 5, 2015 12:51:58 GMT -6
I'm interested/curious about the ADC but not having a lot of knowledge when it comes to converters I need some answers: 1. I own a Symphony 8x8. Would I be able to connect this ADC via the SPDIF on the Symphony? 2. Will the ADC have WC? would I be able to slave the ADC to the Symphony clock? 3. Would this setup create any problems monitoring through Maestro? 4. If I eventually added the DAC would that give me two additional outputs for hardware insert mixing? Obviously these questions would be best answered by someone who knows the Symphony well. Apogee suggested that I buy a used Rosetta 200, but perhaps this ADC would be an even better and cheaper choice. For me it all depends on if it would work well with the Symphony. Thanks much for any help to these questions! 1. A quick search shows that the Symphony has Coax SPDIF I/O, so yes it should connect. How the SPDIF is configured in the symphony software is only something you can answer. I have no experience with the Symphony myself. 2. No. The ADC is intended to be the master clock through SPDIF. Most devices have the ability to slave to the incoming SPDIF signal. Again, this is something only a Symphony user would generally know and is up to the Symphony's software configuration. This is not necessarily a limitation of my design. SPDIF and AES are unidirectional data streams. They are meant for daisy chaining rather than star configurations, so each device is a slave to the device before it. In other words, there is no way to clock backwards into the ADC. 3. Maestro seems to be a software product (I have no experience with it). Again, this is something that should be in the user guide of the Maestro software. Hardware wise, the ADC/DAC units are just un-intelligent SPDIF I/O. Usability is based on software configuration of the softwares that you use. 4. Yes. The DAC is simply a converter for the SPDIF digital signal. If your interface and software allow routing to the SPDIF output, then you can use it however you see fit! Hope this helps. |
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Post by Johnkenn on Jan 5, 2015 13:19:06 GMT -6
1) Yes. You could connect it via the spdif. Your mic pre would go directly into the Svart ADC and then out of the Svart SPDIF into the Symphony.
2) The ADC will not have W/C per Svart...SPDIF can send and receive clock signal, so yes, you could slave the ADC to the Symphony.
3) In Maestro, your input would now be the SPDIF L and or R instead of Analog 1&2
4) I believe so...
Are you trying to get 2 more channels of conversion? Is that the goal? I think you could set the Symphony and Svart box up as an "Aggregate Device" but it's above my learnin' level. Many on here have done it, though. I could never figure it out.
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Post by svart on Jan 5, 2015 15:15:51 GMT -6
Ok guys, I just sunk 900$ into the parts that need some lead time. I was quoted 3 weeks for the longest lead time parts.
Once I get PCBs and those look good I'm buying the next 1000$ worth of parts for the first batch of 10 ADC boards.
To do the DAC boards I'm going to get a company credit card to put that 2K-3K worth of goods on.
You guys better buy these damn things.
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Post by kcatthedog on Jan 5, 2015 15:24:40 GMT -6
Who are you and why are you posting these comments  Seriously why not ask people for a down payment to help defray your costs or do you prefer just one all in transaction ; money in, box shipped : done ? |
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Post by tonycamphd on Jan 5, 2015 15:34:34 GMT -6
huh? who is this.. s va rt guy?  I'm in, but i do hope it's not till the end of next month $ wise..., as a construction dude, the holiday slowdown murders my wallet every year! either way i know myself and my buddy MW are in. |
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Post by svart on Jan 5, 2015 15:36:08 GMT -6
Who are you and why are you posting these comments Seriously why not ask people for a down payment to help defray your costs or do you prefer just one all in transaction ; money in, box shipped : done ? I dislike that business model. See RM for details.. Anyway, after this first batch the pain won't be so bad. Every batch after that will be less painful for me and after I get maybe 30 units out the door, the income should support the production minus me paying myself back for the initial investment and paying for overhead and a little profit for future design work capital. I hadn't planned on making it a continuing venture. I figured I'd make a few batches until the excitement died down and those who wanted a unit got them. Now I'm thinking I do the whole website, and incorporation thing. We'll see how it goes. If demand dies and doesn't support itself, then so be it. If it takes off, I'll be happy and continue on. |
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Post by lpedrum on Jan 5, 2015 17:04:02 GMT -6
1) Yes. You could connect it via the spdif. Your mic pre would go directly into the Svart ADC and then out of the Svart SPDIF into the Symphony. 2) The ADC will not have W/C per Svart...SPDIF can send and receive clock signal, so yes, you could slave the ADC to the Symphony. 3) In Maestro, your input would now be the SPDIF L and or R instead of Analog 1&2 4) I believe so... Are you trying to get 2 more channels of conversion? Is that the goal? I think you could set the Symphony and Svart box up as an "Aggregate Device" but it's above my learnin' level. Many on here have done it, though. I could never figure it out. Thanks guys...I'm learning. And yes, 2 more channels of conversion is the goal. I often overdub drums here and bumping up from 8 to 10 channels would be helpful. I'm also using the Steinberg MR816 via ADAT for more channels, but the quality upgrade of Svart's product is really intriguing. I may have to wait till the second round of building to buy for budgetary reasons. I've also had some quality issues lately with a couple of boutique builders that talked the talk but didn't walk the walk. So with no disrespect intended I'd ideally like to hear from others first how these sound. I really appreciate all of the answers and insights. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2015 17:51:32 GMT -6
Hi svart,
once you took off with your box and the reputation from the first batches spreads via word-of-mouth and reviews on the web, you most probably have a continuous demand - at least for the DAC part as soon as audiophile listeners discover it. It is a very huge consumer market for people with demand for highest quality DACs at fair prices.
I am sure, this is why RM still has more business than he most probably ever expected ...
More than enough potential customers for 2 small businesses with competing products in a long term...
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Post by LesC on Jan 5, 2015 18:53:30 GMT -6
Who are you and why are you posting these comments Seriously why not ask people for a down payment to help defray your costs or do you prefer just one all in transaction ; money in, box shipped : done ? I dislike that business model. See RM for details.. Anyway, after this first batch the pain won't be so bad. Every batch after that will be less painful for me and after I get maybe 30 units out the door, the income should support the production minus me paying myself back for the initial investment and paying for overhead and a little profit for future design work capital. I hadn't planned on making it a continuing venture. I figured I'd make a few batches until the excitement died down and those who wanted a unit got them. Now I'm thinking I do the whole website, and incorporation thing. We'll see how it goes. If demand dies and doesn't support itself, then so be it. If it takes off, I'll be happy and continue on. If the quality is what we're all expecting, I have no doubt that you'll be doing this full time if you'd like to. There are so many music-related products that people are clamoring for very high quality at reasonable prices. Some of these could really use your expertise, including digital format convertors, sample rate convertors, monitor switchers/controllers with options for built-in DAC's, preamps with built-in DAC's for the hi-fi crowd, digital filters for room frequency/phase correction, switchers for adding subwoofers with appropriate filters, I'm sure there's a lot more. |
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Post by formatcyes on Jan 5, 2015 19:09:44 GMT -6
I am still in waiting, waiting, waiting. Is it ready yet? Is it ready yet? Don't think you have to worry about the sales. As long as its called RGO Speedwagon |
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Post by Johnkenn on Jan 5, 2015 19:23:46 GMT -6
I wouldn't even charge a license fee.
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Post by wiz on Jan 5, 2015 21:00:51 GMT -6
i'm serious. I was dreaming about the box in the dream the box was called portal
Cheers
Wiz
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Post by svart on Jan 5, 2015 21:02:36 GMT -6
i'm serious. I was dreaming about the box in the dream the box was called portal Cheers Wiz That's kinda cool. |
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Post by brucerothwell on Jan 6, 2015 9:05:00 GMT -6
Is there a proposed timeline I have not yet seen?
I keep seeing encouragement to get svart's box, but not sure how long I can wait to get _something_.
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Post by svart on Jan 6, 2015 9:13:57 GMT -6
Is there a proposed timeline I have not yet seen? I keep seeing encouragement to get svart's box, but not sure how long I can wait to get _something_. It's buried in the threads somewhere. 2 months from now is the target for production quantities of the ADC and DAC. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Jan 6, 2015 9:37:45 GMT -6
your adc needs to be or is automatically master so one sets one's other interface to spdif in (slaved). Then in your daw you set channel input to spdif in and you are recording the digital output of the svart box: all good.
What about if one wants to record with more than your boxes 2 converters at same time ?
You state we can try daisy chaining on spdif, basically all converters downstream of AD are slaved to its clock( from spdif). Would one connect downstream boxes on WC ad it would be fed from your AD's clock pulled from the spdif signal ?
This in effect creates common clock for multiple converters running in real time in more than one box, so one can have 2 plus channels of same time conversion and just set the channel daw inputs correspondingly. Peripherals with no converters need no clock so don't matter.
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Post by svart on Jan 6, 2015 10:06:15 GMT -6
your adc needs to be or is automatically master so one sets one's other interface to spdif in (slaved). Then in your daw you set channel input to spdif in and you are recording the digital output of the svart box: all good. What about if one wants to record with more than your boxes 2 converters at same time ? You state we can try daisy chaining on spdif, basically all converters downstream of AD are slaved to its clock( from spdif). Would one connect downstream boxes on WC ad it would be fed from your AD's clock pulled from the spdif signal ? This in effect creates common clock for multiple converters running in real time in more than one box, so one can have 2 plus channels of same time conversion and just set the channel daw inputs correspondingly. Peripherals with no converters need no clock so don't matter. In SPDIF, the device connected before then next is always seen as the master for the next one in line. It doesn't *need* to be the master of an interface, but interfaces rarely have the ability to sync incoming data to an internal clock. Most of the time the designers of an interface see their box as the only thing that matters, with peripheral functionality as a necessary evil. Doing this correctly requires a lot of complexity, using FIFOs and de-clocking and re-clocking techniques to sync the incoming data to a clock that is not synchronized to the outside world. As I mentioned before, the symptom that the interface cannot do this is to have pops, clicks, noise, and strange audio artifacts on incoming SPDIF. That almost certainly means that the data stream is slipping in time compared to the internal clock of your interface. If you set the interface to internal clock and this does not happen, that either means that the interface was designed to reclock the data and sync it to the internal clock (very rare these days) or that the two clock sources are very close in accuracy and precision (Even more rare!). I'm not sure what you'd do if you wanted to use more than one box. Honestly, this was only intended to be used as a stereo AD/DA setup. I assume that using multiple boxes would work in any situation where multiple AES3 I/O is used. They most likely just strip the data from the stream and buffer it for use as needed. However, it is VERY rare for an interface to have more than ONE stereo SPDIF input. This would preclude using multiples of my product anyway. In any case, this is beyond the scope of the project. I know that people want this to be "everything" they want, but it's not going to be, and cannot be. Not for the price, and not for the time that people are expecting this to be done in. As for WC, as I mentioned in another post, it's up to the interface. If the designers were smart about it, then their WC generation would sync to the incoming master clock source. When you set that to be SPDIF, then it should switch to using the recovered clock from the SPDIF signal as the source, but this is totally up to the designers of that interface. It has nothing to do with this ADC. As I also mentioned in a previous post, these boxes are just dumb AD/DA boxes. They give you a signal and they take a signal. What you do with those signals is up to you and your interface's abilities. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Jan 6, 2015 11:10:33 GMT -6
all good thx svart!
Apollo's have 2 spdif and WC and adat.
So your box works great for 2 channels of hi end ADDA conversion.
I was just thinking out loud about a possible (?) aggregate device scenario.
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Post by svart on Jan 6, 2015 11:15:23 GMT -6
I'm sorry if that last post seemed a little short tempered. I was rushed in writing it due to day job obligations and an impending meeting I had to attend. I didn't intend for it to seem short tempered.
Anyway, there seems to be a rush of a lot of questions asking for detailed answers about product usage that honestly aren't within my realm of knowledge or responsibility.
I've tried to answer most of them as best as I could (even looking up user manual information for products for people), but most of these seem centered around how to use other company's hardware interfaces that I don't have any experience with and generally don't have much to do with this design. I would suggest that anyone wondering if these boxes will work with their interface read the user manuals of their interface and study the SPDIF/AES protocol. Most of the answers I have given in these threads have come from user manuals that I looked up for those who were asking. It's time consuming and I need to focus my time on finishing other portions of this design and keep my day job on track too.
I'll reiterate this once again, that these boxes give you a signal and take a signal and that's all. What you do with that signal is up to you, your interface's design, it's drivers and software you are running on your computer.
Think of them like you think of a spoon. They are tools to use however you see fit. You can eat with them, or you can use them for your heroin habit. It's up to you.
My boxes will conform to SPDIF protocols, and that's where my work ends and your interface's work begins.
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Post by lpedrum on Jan 6, 2015 11:22:54 GMT -6
In SPDIF, the device connected before then next is always seen as the master for the next one in line. It doesn't *need* to be the master of an interface, but interfaces rarely have the ability to sync incoming data to an internal clock. Most of the time the designers of an interface see their box as the only thing that matters, with peripheral functionality as a necessary evil. Doing this correctly requires a lot of complexity, using FIFOs and de-clocking and re-clocking techniques to sync the incoming data to a clock that is not synchronized to the outside world. As I mentioned before, the symptom that the interface cannot do this is to have pops, clicks, noise, and strange audio artifacts on incoming SPDIF. That almost certainly means that the data stream is slipping in time compared to the internal clock of your interface. If you set the interface to internal clock and this does not happen, that either means that the interface was designed to reclock the data and sync it to the internal clock (very rare these days) or that the two clock sources are very close in accuracy and precision (Even more rare!). I'm not sure what you'd do if you wanted to use more than one box. Honestly, this was only intended to be used as a stereo AD/DA setup. I assume that using multiple boxes would work in any situation where multiple AES3 I/O is used. They most likely just strip the data from the stream and buffer it for use as needed. However, it is VERY rare for an interface to have more than ONE stereo SPDIF input. This would preclude using multiples of my product anyway. In any case, this is beyond the scope of the project. I know that people want this to be "everything" they want, but it's not going to be, and cannot be. Not for the price, and not for the time that people are expecting this to be done in. As for WC, as I mentioned in another post, it's up to the interface. If the designers were smart about it, then their WC generation would sync to the incoming master clock source. When you set that to be SPDIF, then it should switch to using the recovered clock from the SPDIF signal as the source, but this is totally up to the designers of that interface. It has nothing to do with this ADC. As I also mentioned in a previous post, these boxes are just dumb AD/DA boxes. They give you a signal and they take a signal. What you do with those signals is up to you and your interface's abilities. If I may make a suggestion: Many of us (even us working professionals) rarely purchase converters, so an understanding of syncing and WC issues and how it relates and connects to our own gear gets fuzzy fast. If you're serious about getting into the converter building business I would suggest that you (or someone you hire) create explicit instructions on how your product will interact with the half dozen most popular interfaces out there--Apogee, Apollo, etc. Otherwise the customer is left to Google searching and asking friends to find out if the ADC will even work for him. It would also save you the trouble of answering the same questions over and over. I'm surprised that other companies don't take the time to do this--we're talking about a finite amount of information that would be extremely helpful to the potential buyer. |
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Post by Johnkenn on Jan 6, 2015 11:23:42 GMT -6
Hard to please everyone all the time. Kinda figured that out running a pro audio forum. maybe draw out a sketch or what it's gonna look like and what hookups and that will help people visualize. |
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Post by svart on Jan 6, 2015 12:43:40 GMT -6
In SPDIF, the device connected before then next is always seen as the master for the next one in line. It doesn't *need* to be the master of an interface, but interfaces rarely have the ability to sync incoming data to an internal clock. Most of the time the designers of an interface see their box as the only thing that matters, with peripheral functionality as a necessary evil. Doing this correctly requires a lot of complexity, using FIFOs and de-clocking and re-clocking techniques to sync the incoming data to a clock that is not synchronized to the outside world. As I mentioned before, the symptom that the interface cannot do this is to have pops, clicks, noise, and strange audio artifacts on incoming SPDIF. That almost certainly means that the data stream is slipping in time compared to the internal clock of your interface. If you set the interface to internal clock and this does not happen, that either means that the interface was designed to reclock the data and sync it to the internal clock (very rare these days) or that the two clock sources are very close in accuracy and precision (Even more rare!). I'm not sure what you'd do if you wanted to use more than one box. Honestly, this was only intended to be used as a stereo AD/DA setup. I assume that using multiple boxes would work in any situation where multiple AES3 I/O is used. They most likely just strip the data from the stream and buffer it for use as needed. However, it is VERY rare for an interface to have more than ONE stereo SPDIF input. This would preclude using multiples of my product anyway. In any case, this is beyond the scope of the project. I know that people want this to be "everything" they want, but it's not going to be, and cannot be. Not for the price, and not for the time that people are expecting this to be done in. As for WC, as I mentioned in another post, it's up to the interface. If the designers were smart about it, then their WC generation would sync to the incoming master clock source. When you set that to be SPDIF, then it should switch to using the recovered clock from the SPDIF signal as the source, but this is totally up to the designers of that interface. It has nothing to do with this ADC. As I also mentioned in a previous post, these boxes are just dumb AD/DA boxes. They give you a signal and they take a signal. What you do with those signals is up to you and your interface's abilities. If I may make a suggestion: Many of us (even us working professionals) rarely purchase converters, so an understanding of syncing and WC issues and how it relates and connects to our own gear gets fuzzy fast. If you're serious about getting into the converter building business I would suggest that you (or someone you hire) create explicit instructions on how your product will interact with the half dozen most popular interfaces out there--Apogee, Apollo, etc. Otherwise the customer is left to Google searching and asking friends to find out if the ADC will even work for him. It would also save you the trouble of answering the same questions over and over. I'm surprised that other companies don't take the time to do this--we're talking about a finite amount of information that would be extremely helpful to the potential buyer. Understood and agreed.. To a point. I've already planned to attempt this in a high level fashion with an included manual. However, as I've pointed out, there will be instances that only actual usage will explain. This also should never take the place of a person reading and understanding the user manual to their interface device. For me to attempt to explain how other devices work opens myself up to a whole lot of undocumented issues with other hardware devices and the probably "but I bought this because you SAID it would work!" even though the issue probably isn't my fault at all! At some point my responsibility has to end and the end user and the designers of the other products need to take over responsibility of knowing and understanding the systems they use. In other legal aspects, something like this could open up avenues for litigious people who have either taken something out of context or have banked on something they hoped would work. Remember, I do this design stuff for a living and I've seen all kinds of things like this popping up over time. There is always one person who is angry enough to get lawyers involved, typically over some small detail that they find to be easy pickings for legal proceedings. Say if I have some instruction and it turns out to be wrong or otherwise doesn't work as expected and someone messed up thousands of dollars worth of recording time on my instructions.. Who is liable and who pays for that? If my box outputs a simple data stream and it's a settings issue with an unrelated product, then it's not me or my company who is liable.. However, if I'm the one who gives faulty instructions then I could be very liable. I have other issues to worry about before things like this. In other words, instructions from me should never take the place of understanding your own system to the smallest detail. This is something I would expect everyone to do on their own and I feel is virtuous. For example the question of if a WC stream is generated from the clock recovered from the SPDIF input of a particular interface. User manuals rarely go into such detail because the designer of the interface is not concerned with the end user understanding these fundamentals, especially if it exposes shortcomings in the design. The designer expects the average user to use their device in a specific way. They design their product for the average user. Generally, they will have some amount of more detailed information somewhere for their "power users", but it's up to the user to find this information. I have not seen such detail in any of the manuals I have looked at. It's also expressed in more modern terminology: LMGTFY. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Jan 6, 2015 12:54:06 GMT -6
And let's give svart a break
You have told us the specifics and type of comm that applies to and from your box
I don't expect you to answer all questions about other interfaces's comm linkages. I was just thinking about possible use scenerios.
No apologies expected or required !
Thank you for your hard work on this: much appreciated !
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jan 6, 2015 13:01:16 GMT -6
In SPDIF, the device connected before then next is always seen as the master for the next one in line. It doesn't *need* to be the master of an interface, but interfaces rarely have the ability to sync incoming data to an internal clock. Most of the time the designers of an interface see their box as the only thing that matters, with peripheral functionality as a necessary evil. Doing this correctly requires a lot of complexity, using FIFOs and de-clocking and re-clocking techniques to sync the incoming data to a clock that is not synchronized to the outside world. As I mentioned before, the symptom that the interface cannot do this is to have pops, clicks, noise, and strange audio artifacts on incoming SPDIF. That almost certainly means that the data stream is slipping in time compared to the internal clock of your interface. If you set the interface to internal clock and this does not happen, that either means that the interface was designed to reclock the data and sync it to the internal clock (very rare these days) or that the two clock sources are very close in accuracy and precision (Even more rare!). I'm not sure what you'd do if you wanted to use more than one box. Honestly, this was only intended to be used as a stereo AD/DA setup. I assume that using multiple boxes would work in any situation where multiple AES3 I/O is used. They most likely just strip the data from the stream and buffer it for use as needed. However, it is VERY rare for an interface to have more than ONE stereo SPDIF input. This would preclude using multiples of my product anyway. In any case, this is beyond the scope of the project. I know that people want this to be "everything" they want, but it's not going to be, and cannot be. Not for the price, and not for the time that people are expecting this to be done in. As for WC, as I mentioned in another post, it's up to the interface. If the designers were smart about it, then their WC generation would sync to the incoming master clock source. When you set that to be SPDIF, then it should switch to using the recovered clock from the SPDIF signal as the source, but this is totally up to the designers of that interface. It has nothing to do with this ADC. As I also mentioned in a previous post, these boxes are just dumb AD/DA boxes. They give you a signal and they take a signal. What you do with those signals is up to you and your interface's abilities. If I may make a suggestion: Many of us (even us working professionals) rarely purchase converters, so an understanding of syncing and WC issues and how it relates and connects to our own gear gets fuzzy fast. If you're serious about getting into the converter building business I would suggest that you (or someone you hire) create explicit instructions on how your product will interact with the half dozen most popular interfaces out there--Apogee, Apollo, etc. Otherwise the customer is left to Google searching and asking friends to find out if the ADC will even work for him. It would also save you the trouble of answering the same questions over and over. I'm surprised that other companies don't take the time to do this--we're talking about a finite amount of information that would be extremely helpful to the potential buyer. I have never seen a Converter manufacturer provide anything but Generic hook up / installation information in there manual or any other medium. Honestly if you require this detailed information I suggest you either hire a consultant or deal with a dealer who is willing to provide this service, but be prepared to be limitited in the gear available and pay for this service. Svart is taking the time to design and build a high quality set of converters to a market that understands the basics of hooking up a basic digital signal flow. This could be one of the reasons RM is so behind, if this is the type of support the "Pro Audio Market" requires I'm glad I'm no longer associated with a dealer or Manufacturer. Again Svart is trying to do those who appreciate the value of the product and have an understanding of it , a favor by manufacturering a quality piece at a great price point in limited quantities with limited support, he is not trying to be M-Audio et al. |
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Post by Johnkenn on Jan 6, 2015 13:03:52 GMT -6
And let's give svart a break You have told us the specifics and type of comm that applies to and from your box I don't expect you to answer all questions about other interfaces's comm linkages. I was just thinking about possible use scenerios. No apologies expected or required ! Thank you for your hard work on this: much appreciated ! Totally agree. Don't sweat this thread. Let us answer this stuff for you and if you need to correct us, chime in. |
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I'm in, but i do hope it's not till the end of next month $ wise..., as a construction dude, the holiday slowdown murders my wallet every year! either way i know myself and my buddy MW are in.
