RME Micstasy
Remote Pre-Amp

by Alistair McGhee (Audio Engineer, Assistant Editor, BBC Radio Wales)

Top-quality audio, MADI interfacing with renote control thrown in, autogain magic, and?the trouble with FOH engineers?. This review has everything ... Alistair McGhee has a new friend.

When I first opened the parcel from RME I was pleased to find that alongside the Micstasy, the company had included its HDSP MADI PCI car, which provides an inexpensive entry into the world of MADI - normally of course, you have to buy it seperately. On the other hand, finding a spare PCI slot in my computer is getting increasingly hard. It already has three sound cards in it, and with the Firewire and the SCSI in there too it?s a bit of a squeeze.

Fortunately, I had an old Compaq server lying around which I had fondly imagined that I could stick Linux on, to use as a music box with an Audio Science sound card. No way - the Compaq defeated everything I thew at it and in the end it had to be XP. Here, I thought, is a test of hardware compatibility. Unflustered, the RME installed withput a blip, as did the software - I was impressed. So without further ado I connected the Micstasy and away we went. Having spent a a few minutes with the control software I decided to jump straight to audio fidelity ...

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