To Waedi 1) MADI connection is a ring connection, you can't only use 1 connection, you need the connection back to the UFX+.

To Waedi 3) AFAIR the automatic recognition of double speed is not always possible, you might have to change this on the connected device. I think this is the case with ADAT.

To 4) UFX+ with MADI is IMHO the best choice. As preamp you could consider the 12Mic, which can be used for MADI and also offers AVB capabilities, if that should be needed in the future.

See my blog articles about UFX+ alone and in combination with Octamic XTC via MADI and a combination of UFX+, XTC and 12Mic:

About UFX+ and its flexible use for recording:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … 8-RME-UFX/
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … -DURec-DE/

About UFX+ in combination with Octamic XTC (MADI setup example) and UFX+ with 12Mic and XTC:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … Cber-MADI/
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … XTC-DE-EN/

Thanks lightbox, just notices you were faster than me Ok .. but here we go .. what I already typed in..

One quick answer in terms of your drawing, if you connect UFX+ ADAT OUT to the external device
then this device should be able to learn clock from the UFX+ through ADAT. Then WC is not required.

To answer the rest ..

I would not suggest a solution based on two Digiface USB recording interfaces.
Then you have two TM FX instances where you can not route the input of interface to the output of the other interface.

You need to count how many channels you require and with which sample rates you need to work.
Is single speed enough or do you need double speed ?
By channel multiplexing the amount of channels for MADI and ADAT is only half with doublespeed.

AVB allows for more channels (128) and if I remember right the bandwidth is only limited by the bandwidth of the links of the underlying switch structure. In terms of AVB I would recommend to talk to RME, because there I have no practical experience. With AVB you need additionally AVB switches when connecting more than 1 AVB device.

ADAT offers 8ch at single speed, 4ch at double speed and max cable lenght is 10m (standard) with RME 16m works as well.
MADI offers 64ch at single speed, 32ch at double speed and max cable lenght is 2km (multimode) or 10km (single mode)

Newer RME devices like 12Mic and M-1610 Pro allow you to choose the type of SFP, then you can choose whether you want to take multimode or single mode (laser based). For older MADI devices you need to tell RME when ordering, whether you want single mode. Otherwise the default is multimode which is in most cases fully sufficient. 2km between every device .. uh wow

OM3/OM4 Patch cables are usually available in 30m length, for longer connections in a buillding your have surely optical inhouse cabling. So if you connect 8 MADI devices from device to device and back to the recording device then you can already build a chain of 9x30 = 270m Thats more and more flexible compared to TOSLINK cabling.

USB/TB
UFX+ gives you flexibility to connect to the PC with USB3 and Thunderbolt. USB2 also possible, but then without MADI.
It has 1 MADI bus, optical and coax and offers nice features like DURec for backup recordings.

If PCIe cards are possible:
- HDSPe MADI has 2 MADI busses
- HDSPe MADI FX has 3 MADI busses and performance optimized driver and the only PCIe card with FX chip
   2x optical and 1xcoax with daughter card, but with an optional card you get 3x optical in total

Or you consider MADIface XT ... 2x optical MADI bus, 1x coax.

Or you consider something AVB based ....
- Digiface AVB
- 12Mic
- M32-Pro AD
- M32-Pro DA

You can also consider to integrate existing MADI devices into AVB like shown in my 12Mic review, this this pic:

> I could go  HDSPe MADI FX + RME M-32 AD Pro + RME M-32 DA Pro that is 32/32 channels @ 192 with zero latency

Is your requirement to have
- 12 Mic Inputs and
- minimum 24x analog I/O
available at quad speed (192 kHz) ?

With devices like M-32 Pro AD/DA this is IMHO only doable with a recording device supporting 3 MADI busses.

The RME M-32 Pro AD and DA alone fully utilized one MADI bus at double speed (96 kHz). Quad speed is according to manual only possible if you use the two MADI connectors on the M-32 Pro AD/DA (1x optical, 1x coaxial).

Alone by this you need best a recording device with 1x optical and 1x koaxial MADI and then you need still a certain reserve for the 12 Mic ports at quad speed. One more MADI bus gives you 16 ports at 192 Khz, so you could connect either one 12Mic or 1-2 XTC on a third MADI bus.

Whats IMHO good possible for a nice 192 kHz setup:
HDSPe MADI FX with the optimizing ASIO driver (only allocates computer resources for active ports in groups of eight).
- MADI1 (optical) + MADI3 (koaxial) : for M-32 Pro AD and DA
- MADI2 (optical): for 12MIC

https://www.thomann.de/de/rme_hdspe_madi_fx.htm €1489
https://www.thomann.de/de/rme_m_32_ad_pro.htm   €3589
https://www.thomann.de/de/rme_m_32_da_pro.htm   €3589
https://www.thomann.de/de/rme_12mic.htm                €2548    ----- TOTAL €11.215

You could also use the Octamic XTC for 8 Mic Ports, but I wanted to make it possible to you, to use the devices also for AVB, if there should be a certain demand for it...

Please see here further information about the HDSPe MADI FX:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … Pro-FS-BE/
Excellent is the optimized driver. The inputs and outputs are divided in groups of eight. If no port in such a group is in use then the driver does not allocate resources for these 8 channels. So if you put channels, that you use more often more to the front, then you can safe computer resources nicely.

Another options would be to use something USB3 based, like the MADIface XT, if PCIe is not possible for whatever reason.
According to the amount of channels and the optimizing driver I personally would prefer the e HDSPe MADI FX.

HDSPe MADI FX is also nice as it has analog ouputs for phones, MIDI ports and even AES, so that you could nicely add a ADI-2 Pro FS R BE via AES for the perfect phones preamp and your main monitors. But this is no requirement, you have enough perfect ports with the M-32 Pro AD/DA.

For such a solution I would use RME ... With the HDSPe MADI FX you can route any input to any output, because one recording interface supports that many channels and you do not have to work with multiple TM FX instances.

All connected devices support power redundancy. I would plan for this on the computer as well for power redundancy.
And all devices would also support AVB (prepared for the future).

With MADI you have IMHO the advantage that you have p2p links, fully independend from anything else and you save at the moment the costs for 1 or more AVB switches depending on where the devices are located...

As the HDSPe MADI FX supports TotalMix FX, you can also connect an ARC USB and have a nice controller by this for the TM FX control room.

This is btw also the only PCIe card from RME which has a FX chip on bord.
A very nice solution.

If you get the 12Mic, then soon you will also be able to remote control it as AUXDEVICE so that all Preamp settings can be stored in TM FX snapshots ... AUXDEVICE support is promised to be added to the 12Mic.

Following a 4-eye principle I would contact RME, whether this setup is ok, I might have overlooked something.

You should also have an eye on, that your PC is capable to run a full workload of around 76 ch max @192 kHz.

@KZe, long story short .. jump to the end and use UFX+

I made my proposal only because one of your statements in port #1 sounded as if you have a strong requirement for 192 kHz for a quite high number of channels (around 8-12 Mic Pres and maybe up to 24 analog ports. Therefore I checked very thoroughly for 192 kHz support and ended up with my proposed solution..

There might other solutions be possible, but then it would be very kind if you could be more specific in terms of your requirements.

Questions regarding A/D and D/A converter:

1.1) Does the number of analog in/out channels need to be equal ? Why I ask: the RME M-1610 Pro has more input than output channel, because most people do not need an equal amount of input and output channels. Additionally the the M-1610 do not have that "costy" display to cut some costs.

1.2) So, how many analog in, analog out do you need at minimum and what would be "nice to have" with a little reserve ?

1.3) Do you need to set reference levels per port ? I heard, in the old studio days you had the typical situations that all input and output ports were connected to the same device or same type of device. So it was sufficient to set the reference levels per inputs and outputs, but not per port (example: ADI-8 QS). In my home recording studio I have different requirements, I need to be able to set reference levels per port, so for me the newer devices like UFX+, M-1610 Pro (or even M-32 Pro if I would need that many channels) would be required, where you can set reflevel per port. To whatever device you look, you should ensure whether this requirement is met or not.

Questions regarding Mic Preamp:

2.1) How many channels do you need at minimum, what would be "nice to have" ?

2.2) Do you need additional Instrument ports ? Some RME devices offer 4 Instr ports (Octamic XTC, 12Mic)

2.3) Do you need a feature like Autoset to automatically set the proper gain (UFX+, XTC, 12Mic) ?

2.4) Do you need a feature like Auxdevice to be able to remote control the most important parameters of your preamp by TotalMix FX (by using the MIDI over MADI feature)?

2.5) Do you need a feature like Auxdevice to be able to easily store and recall your preamp settings in TotalMix FX snapshots?

If you answered any of the last three questions with yes, then you should look for a RME preamp like the Octamic XTC or the 12Mic. Note: Auxdevice support for the 12Mic will come later in a firmware upgrade. For the XTC its already available.

2.6) Do you need a feature like delay compensation, so that Mic Stereo recordings arrive sample exact at your DAW. Especially needed if the amount of Mic Pres is >1 and if it should not matter, to what device you connect the Mic stereo pair. RME MADI solutions with an XTC makes this possible. And it is also possible with AVB as far as I heard.

If you answered the last question with yes, then you should look either for a RME MADI solution and the Octamic XTC preamp or for a AVB based solution where I heard that the timing should be as exact as the delay compensation feature of RME MADI based solutions.

3. General question

3.1 Is recording in double speed required for all channels ?
3.2 Is recording in    quad speed required for all channels ?

Regarding ADAT based solutions

ADAT based solutions I regard as tricky (or even not really possible) because of the high number of channels and your demand to work with double or even quad speed.
Look at the RayDAT: 4x ADAT I/O
32ch in/out @44.1/48 kHz (single speed)
16ch in/out @88.2/96 kHz (double speed)
  8ch in/out @176,4/192 kHz (quad speed)
I think we can agree that ADAT with one PCIe card does not bring you any further if you look at double and quad speed.

If you think about using two cards, this is fine:
64ch in/out @44.1/48 kHz (single speed)
32ch in/out @88.2/96 kHz (double speed)
16ch in/out @176,4/192 kHz (quad speed)
But then you have
- still not enough channels for quad and maybe even double speed
- limitations in TM FX routing, because you can route channels with TM FX only inside of one instance.
Workaround would be to route in the DAW, but then you loose a certain flexibility by TM FX routing / loopback functions.
You need to use two optional WC modules to synch by word clock, check whether you have so many Slots free in your computers tower. For two RayDAT cards with WC you need already 6 Slots.

MADI based solutions in contrast to ADAT
Several advtantages:
- more channels 64 vs 8 at single speed
- higher cable length, up to 2km (with single mode even 10km between each of the devices in a MADI "chain")
- everything over MADI, even the management traffic (MIDI over MADI) saves you MIDI cabling

Things would be much much easier to you if you would use double speed and quad speed only with fewer channels:
then you could use an UFX+ with its nice features and DURec.
Then you can still decide or "differentiate" whether you want to make use of RMEs unique features for preamps or not, like Autoset, Auxdevice for remote control and storing/recalling Preamps settings in TM FX snapshots.

And you could make use of all the very nice features of the UFX+..
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … 8-RME-UFX/
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … -DURec-DE/

Additional Advantage of RME Mic Preamps / ADDA converter
Additional features that other devices do not offer, e.g.
- power supply redundancy (12Mic, M-1610 Pro, M-32 Pro)
- remote management over MIDI, MIDI over MADI, Ethernet (AVB products)
- three different remote management options (MIDI remote, Auxdevice, via Browser), individual for each device, check)
- Delay Compensation over MADI (and AVB)
- Format conversion features between MADI, AVB, ADAT, AES .. (individual for each device, check)
- Class Compliant mode to connect even to iPAD (Octamic XTC)
- Features like Autoset, PAD, INSTR, one or two phones outputs (individual for each device, check)
- Integration of MADI devices into AVB
- Start with UFX+ and MADI, but your devices are also capable to be operated in an AVB environemnt

Sorry but I still do not get your requirements together, because there are still conflicting statements. Example:

to 1.1 you say: "yes I need more inputs" (than outputs)
to 1.2 you say: "Given that I have 10 pres now, I m thinking of at least 10 line inputs and 16 outs"  But that is more outputs than inputs.

And I am questioning myself why you mentioned recording at 192 kHz in post #7 for all three option that you saw at this point.
This sounded as if you really intend to record at quad speed (192 kHz).
And now you talk about single speed. It would have saved me a lot of time knowing this earlier.

lightbox> At 192kHz, the UFX+ has a total of 34 audio inputs and 34 audio outputs

AES is bridged with ADAT2 (not really two separate inputs, see block diagram in the manual), because of this you use either ADAT2 or AES. So I would more say: 32/32.

KZe> And I now think that the above setup can record at 192 right?
         [Comment Ramses, this setup: UFX+, Madison, Octamic XTC]

Not with the full amount of channels: if you connect Madison and Octamic XTC to MADI, then you are using 16+8 = 24 input channels.

MADI bus channel count:
64ch @single  speed (44,1/48)
32ch @double speed (88,2/96)
16ch @quad    speed (176,4/192)

He Ramses from reading the manual and looking at the block diagram and earlier experiences with RME devices I can not see why this would be the case unless you set adat port 2 to be optical spdif (then it will mirror AES?). If set to Adat, which the adi2 can receive, adat2 and AES should be fully independent as it has always been.

You're both fully correct, Vinark and lightbox, many thanks.
Now I need to think about what I like more.
Full ARC USB based control or like before a mixture of ARC USB and ADI-2 Pro control using remapped keys to switch.
What I am missing now is the slow ramp-up and -down when switching between monitors and phones at the ADI.

What I like with this setup, that "Monitor B" can get two different assignments, to toggle between:
1. Monitors (RL906) and HiFi
2. Phones (LCD-3) and Monitors (RL906)

yes, stability, features and operational concepts become more important
For Mic Pres I would not like to miss features like Autoset and remote control by TM FX (Auxdevice).

In your proposal #3 (UFX+ and M-32 Pro AD and DA) you miss IMHO Mic Pres.
UFX+ offers 4 Mic Preamps on the device. But if you only connect AD/DA converters (M32-Pro) then you need additionaly external Preamps (space, cost).

I would go #2 and you need to look whats fits best into your plans, XTC or 12Mic. Nice with the XTC: normal 8-port scheme ideal for MADI, 4 AES Ports, ADAT, USB for audio, 2 phones outputs, 4x Instr, 4x PAD ... a great very versatile device.
If you do not need AVB compatibility ... you can easily stay with MADI.

Don't know whether you have other applications for optical fiber cable or whether you have or will have structured cabling.
I personally use OM4 cable, since it is not so much more expensive, but a newer cabling standard enabling for (if I remember right) higher throughput and longer cabling length.

Mutec cable is very solid and best in terms of useability. I had one time the much thicker Sommer TOSLINK and this is a nightmare as the cable is so stiff, that it issues some "side" force to the plug. Mutec works for me up to 15+1=16m with RME (between UFX+ and ADI-2 Pro / with a TOSLINK switcher in between) up to 192 kHz. Due to the selected high quality TOSLINKS in RME devices and I think that also the Mutac quality is just right for that.