1 Topic by Jperkins (edited by Jperkins 2023-07-19 01:57:42)

  • Registered: 2017-08-26
  • Posts: 209

Topic: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

I am having a hard time after purchasing a 3rd AES card to use in my configuration.

I had a very tough time getting it updated to the new firmware because I had to install the kernel version and then there was a conflict of both drivers being installed, but I think I am passed that. I saw it say firmware 207 at one point in the updater app.

My question now is should I be able to in theory use 3 AES cards and one AIO Pro card all in the same Mac Pro? Or am I limited to 3 HDSPe cards total and I'm trying to use 4?

As you can see in the screen shot linked below, all AES cards are showing up in the Total Mix app, but only two AES cards are showing up in the HDSPe settings app.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4salpo1n … u&dl=0

I can't tell if I still have the firmware goofed up, or if I am trying to do something that is not possible.

  • Registered: 2017-08-26
  • Posts: 209

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

Update: I removed the AIO Pro Card from my system and now all 3 AES cards show up in the HDSPe Settings app and total mix.

Is there really a limitation of three HDSPe cards total?

  • Registered: 2017-08-26
  • Posts: 209

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

Another question:

My old card appears to be up to date right?
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/lffnpsyr … k&dl=0

I'm confused by what I'm seeing with my new card here:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/qg1e81r8 … f&dl=0

Does that look strange or correct?

  • From: Haimhausen
  • Registered: 2012-04-02
  • Posts: 252

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

All the cards are shown in TotalMix so they should work all together. AFAIK the driver supports up to 6 six cards. Do you see all 4 cards in the Mac OS Audio /Midi setup? In the pull down menu of the HDSPe driver you should see them as well.
The cards are up to date according to your firmware updater. It looks correct.

Regards,
Audio AG Support

Audio AG Support's Website

  • Registered: 2017-08-26
  • Posts: 209

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

Audio AG Support wrote:

All the cards are shown in TotalMix so they should work all together. AFAIK the driver supports up to 6 six cards. Do you see all 4 cards in the Mac OS Audio /Midi setup? In the pull down menu of the HDSPe driver you should see them as well.
The cards are up to date according to your firmware updater. It looks correct.

Thanks for the info. That's the weird part is that the new card was working and all 4 cards were showing in Total Mix, but only 3 cards (my two older AES and my AIO Pro) were showing in the HDSPe Settings app.

I was too overwhelmed by everything else and forgot to check the Audio MIDI app to see if all cards were showing there.

I am currently using the new card in place of one of my older AES cards, another older AES cards, and my AIO Pro and everything seems OK.

I would ideally like to use 3 AES cards and my AIO Pro card but I also had another issue in that the olde AES card that I was intending to use as a meter input was not correcting changing to the incoming sample rate. I had it set to AutoSync and tried using both Word Clock and AES as the clock source.

In both cases, the correct sample rate appeared in the clock area of the HDSPe Settings app, but the actual sample rate of the card would incorrectly change to 48k or 88.k when I was jumping between 44.1k and 96k sources. Seems like an RME bug.

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 9,839

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

Looks more like some kind of incorrect sync setting to me. Only one card can run on internal clock.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • Registered: 2017-08-26
  • Posts: 209

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

RME Support wrote:

Looks more like some kind of incorrect sync setting to me. Only one card can run on internal clock.

FWIW, the cards are not working together, they are all working independently. My goal was to have 3 independent AES cards for various DAW work, and also keep using my AIO Pro card for listening to Qobuz and other Mac sounds.

That said, "Only one card can run on internal clock" is a strange limitation but I actually only have one AES card that is working on an internal clock. I use it primarily for WaveLab use and it works great. It easily changes sample rate with my WaveLab projects and is just used for audio playback. No issues. Works great.

My other AES card is set to "AutoSync" and syncs from my Crane Song HEDD Quantum. No problems there either.

What was meant to be my 3rd AES card I am trying to set it to "AutoSync" and have it adapt to incoming sample rate changes from the AES1 feed. I see the correct sample rate in the clocking/sync area but the actual dropdown menu that dictates the actual sample rate of the card seem to go to an incorrect sample rate such as 48k or 82.2k when I was testing last night jumping between 96k and 44.1k projects.

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 9,839

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

That "limitation" is a general rule in setups with several digitally connected devices, only one can be clock master, everything else needs to sync to it.

The cards can only "work together" on a Mac if you create an Aggregate Device.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

9 Reply by Jperkins (edited by Jperkins 2023-07-19 14:33:53)

  • Registered: 2017-08-26
  • Posts: 209

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

I understand, but I am trying to treat these as all individual audio devices, so I don't want or need to create an Aggregate Device or sync anything. Each card is meant to be doing its own thing at different times.

Here's a case where the device is seeing 96k at AES 1 but even when set to AutoSync, it does not change itself to 96k:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ktqht7p3 … p&dl=0

it will change itself between 44.1k and 48k but it won't change itself up to 96k. If I manually change it to 96k and then do something that should force it to change to 48k or 44.1k, it changes itself to 88.2k for some reason.

  • Registered: 2017-08-26
  • Posts: 209

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

Sorry for the Dropbox links but I can't seem to post images to the forum.

I have put all 3 AES cards back in the Mac Pro, as well as the AIO Pro card.

The AIO Pro shows up in Total Mix and Audio MIDI Settings but it doesn't show up in the HDSPe settings app:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1xtw04a5pw4o … 0yKXa?dl=0

So far I have only been able to see 3 cards in the HDSPe settings app. Originally it was two AES cards and the AIO Pro but after putting all 4 cards back in the Mac today, the 3 AES cards are the ones that chose to show up in the HDSPe settings app.

The AIO Pro card does seem to be working but it's not ideal that I can't access its settings in the HDSPe settings app.

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 9,839

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

I'm not totally sure whether the Mac driver supports 6 cards as well... What happens if you test with only 2 AES and the AIO?

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • Registered: 2017-08-26
  • Posts: 209

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

RME Support wrote:

I'm not totally sure whether the Mac driver supports 6 cards as well... What happens if you test with only 2 AES and the AIO?

I'm not sure if "Audio AG Support" is official RME support or just a random person but they said 6 cards can work.

When I had two AES cards and the AIO Pro in the Mac Pro, I could see all 3 in the HDSPe Settings app.

It seems that while more than 3 cards can work and can appear in the Total Mix app as well as Audio MIDI, I can't get more than 3 cards to appear in the HDSPeSettings app. I wasn't not expecting this limitation.

This limitation and the fact that the AES card is not correctly adapting to sample rate changes when set to "AutoSync" from the incoming AES signal is not ideal. I also tried with Word Clock and got the same results. It won't go up to 96k from 44.1k, it stops at 48k. It won't go down to 44.1k from 96k, it changes to 88.2k instead.

  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2007-04-10
  • Posts: 9,839

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

6 cards is correct for the Windows driver, but may not be for the Mac driver... If nothing's to be found in the manual, I can ask...

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

RME Support's Website

  • Registered: 2017-08-26
  • Posts: 209

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

RME Support wrote:

6 cards is correct for the Windows driver, but may not be for the Mac driver... If nothing's to be found in the manual, I can ask...

if you can ask or check that would be great. I didn't find anything in the manual.

  • Registered: 2017-08-26
  • Posts: 209

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

And FWIW, I haven't tried making my 2.0 card the metering input but I just tried making my rev 1.3 card the meter input instead of my 1.0 card and it has the same issue:

it will change itself between 44.1k and 48k but it won't change itself up to 96k. If I manually change it to 96k and then do something that should force it to change to 48k or 44.1k, it changes itself to 88.2k for some reason.

This seems like a bug. It should follow the sample rate of the incoming AES signal.

16 Reply by Jperkins (edited by Jperkins 2023-07-20 20:36:18)

  • Registered: 2017-08-26
  • Posts: 209

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

FWIW, I have taken my oldest AES card (Rev 1.0) out of my Mac Pro so that I can see my two important AES cards and AIO Pro card in the HDSPe Settings app.

Until the limitation of 3 cards in the HDSPe Settings app is resolved, I'm better off using my MiniDSP USB/AES device for my metering input as I was doing before.

Once the the limitation of 3 cards in the HDSPe Settings app is resolved, I can put the older Rev 1.0 card in a Sonnet Thunderbolt chassis to sort out the bug of the AES card not changing to the incoming sample rate of the AES signal as it should. Once that is sorted out, maybe I can put the 3rd AES card in my Mac Pro as I originally wanted to do so I had no external USB/TB devices.

The unintended improvement in this upgrade is that the new Rev 2.0 card is now used for my analog mastering chain and unlike the Rev 1.0 card, the Rev 2.0 card using the DriveKit drivers is immune to other apps that also use that card and some other misc tasks on the Mac (inserting my USB-C backup drive) causing an audio disruption when audio is playing.

  • Registered: 2017-08-26
  • Posts: 209

Re: RME AES and AIO Pro Card Question

OK, as of yesterday the symptoms of other apps that share my Rev 2.0 AES card and a few other misc tasks on the Mac causing an audio disruption is back.

I'm not sure why that issue went away but as I went back to my previous setup (2 independent AES cards, AIO Pro card, and MiniDSP AES/USB device for metering input), the issue came back at some point.