• Registered: 2009-08-04
  • Posts: 21

Topic: Mixing single and double-wire i/o on HDSPe AES card

Greetings!
I'm about to purchase an HDSPe AES32 card to put in a new 8-core Mac Pro, to serve as a front end for Logic (Mac) and Pyramix (PC via Boot Camp).  I'm a classical recording guy, and have two high-end ADC and DAC boxes, by Crane Song and Genex.  The trouble is that the Crane Song Spider outputs multichannel 192kHz via 4 single-wire XLRs, while my older Genex GX A8 and D8 use 8 XLRs with the double-wide protocol.  It seems to me that, *theoretically,* I could get twelve channels of 192kHz i/o in and out of the HDSPe with my equipment (1-8 using the upper connector, and 9-12 using the eight i/o on the lower connector), but I do not know if this is really possible.  The promo material says that the card will automatically adjust to single/double/quad wire scenarios, but can it automatically adjust to two different protocols at once?  Thank you for your experience!  "Dr. Fred" in Western MA.

2 Reply by MC

  • MC
  • MC
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  • From: Germany/Thailand
  • Registered: 2007-04-06
  • Posts: 25,670

Re: Mixing single and double-wire i/o on HDSPe AES card

Not possible. All ins and all outs have to use the same protocol respectively.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • Registered: 2009-08-04
  • Posts: 21

Re: Mixing single and double-wire i/o on HDSPe AES card

Thanks for replying so quickly.  It's not a deal-breaker; I'll still get the card. ;>)  Trouble is, two Weiss Hydra converters cost more than your card does!  Oh well..  I'll just have to scale back to 8 channels for those situations, or lower the fs if I need the additional channels.
On a second subject--I am assuming that your card will fit in PCIe slot #2, the one adjacent to the "double-sized" slot #1, in which I have only a "normal" graphics card installed.  And that its channel 9-16 daughter card will occupy that unused space between slots 1 and 2, allowing me to still use slot #3 for, say, a small combination FW/eSATA card.  (Slot 4 already has a second graphics card, for monitors 3 and 4.)
Thanks again!

  • Jeff
  • Jeff
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  • Registered: 2007-05-21
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Re: Mixing single and double-wire i/o on HDSPe AES card

You could use an ADI-192DD to change Double Wire to Single Wire. ADI-4DD does this too, but only up to 96kHz.

Regards,
Jeff Petersen
Synthax Inc.

Jeff's Website