Setup suggestions

Hi GeertS, welcome to the RME user forum.

To be able to get a better understanding of your setup and requirements, please
- use concrete product names (maybe a link to the product)
- describe your use cases and
- provide a drawing of how the components are connected with each other.

What RME PCIe card exactly?

Is it the RME HDSPe MADI or the HDSPe MADI FX?

Powerplay?

Do you mean Behringer Powerplay P2 for in-ear monitoring? Is it correct that they are mono?
Regarding quality: for in-ear monitoring with €33 BP P2 alone, you would not need Burl converters...
It looks as if the BP P2 is a very cheap in-ear monitoring solution in mono.

Sample rates that you intend to work with

You also need to be concrete with which sample rate(s) you usually work.
You only talk about the number of (MADI and ADAT) channels, but not about the purpose and minimum demand.
At higher sample rates (double, quad speed), channel multiplexing is in place for getting the higher bandwidth needed for higher sample rates, which reduces the number of channels.

At single speed (44.1/48 kHz), you have this amount of channels: ADAT: 8, MADI: 64
At double speed (88.2/96 kHz), you have only 50% of channels (ADAT: 4, MADI: 32)
At quad speed (176.4/192 kHz), you have only 25% of channels (ADAT: 2, MADI: 16)

MADI 32x32

What do you mean with MADI 32x32? Do you mean 32 inputs and 32 outputs?
At what sample rate(s)?
Like shown above MADI has 64 channels (in and out) at single speed, 32 at quad speed.
What devices do you intend to connect to MADI?

ADAT

For what purpose do you need 8 or 16 ADAT channels?
Also here, what sample rate(s) do you use?
Are ADAT inputs or outputs or both needed?
Do the ADAT ports have to be switchable between ADAT and SPDIF protocol?

I am asking because the HDSPe MADI PCIe card has no ADAT channels.
So, from where should ADAT come in your current setup?

Possibly from a connected MADI device, but not all of them have ADAT inputs and outputs.
And not all of them allow switching between ADAT and SPDIF protocol.

Therefore please detail how you want to use the ADAT I/O ports and what requirements you have:
what is being connected, what sample rate(s), protocol (ADAT, SPDIF).

MADI recording interface, PCIe or USB?

Do you want/need a PCIe-based interface with MADI or something USB-based?
This also depends on your computer. Is it a desktop or laptop system?
Does the recording interface need to be able to work stand-alone without any PC?

PCIe based recording interfaces

RME offers two PCIe based solutions supporting MADI:
- HDSPe MADI, 128 ch, supporting one MADI bus, optical or coaxial and
- HDSPe MADI FX, 390 ch supporting three MADI buses (2x opt, 1x coax, optional 3x optical) and a rich feature set

If you got the  HDSPe MADI then I am wondering why you didn't choose the HDSPe MADI FX instead,
which offers so much more and only costs €300 more.

A few examples:
- DSP for FX, RoomEQ, and Crossfeed.
- additional I/O ports: 3x MADI I/O (2x optical, 1x coaxial), AES, phones output at the card
- The 3rd coaxial MADI port can be changed to optical by purchasing an optional daughter card (OPTO-X).

Here it would be practical to have the HDSPe MADI FX, which can have up to 3 optical MADI buses.
With MADI optical you also have galvanic isolation between the devices, which is excellent against hum.

But none of these cards offers you ADAT I/O.

ADAT solutions for MADI

In the past, RME offered the ADI-648 MADI/ADAT format converter, which gives you 8x ADAT I/O = 64 channels in/out at single speed. But this product is not being produced anymore, now only via the used market available.
This product supports only ADAT, not the SPDIF protocol.

To get ADAT via MADI you have to look for a MADI device (e.g. RME preamp or converter) that delivers ADAT I/O additionally. Then you can route these additional ADAT ports to free ports on the MADI bus.
Please note: preamps usually offer only ADAT outputs, but no inputs (e.g. 12Mic: 3x ADAT outputs).

To get ADAT outputs and inputs, you should look for AD/DA converters supporting MADI:
The most flexible product would be the RME M-1620 Pro AD/DA-converter, with:
- 16x analog I/O
- 2x headphone outputs
- 4x ADAT I/O (IN and OUT).

USB3 based MADI solutions

As waedi already mentioned, a UFX III (USB3) might be the ideal choice because you get a good mix of everything:
- 4 Mic/Inst preamps
- 8x Analog I/O
- 2x headphone outputs
- 1x AES I/O (protocol switchable to SPDIF)
- 2x ADAT I/O (protocol switchable to SPDIF)
- 1x MADI I/O optical (also coaxial is possible by using the
- 2x MIDI I/O
- Word Clock
- advanced features like:
   - DURec (direct USB recording as backup recording to a DAW recording or for stand-alone operation)
   - Autoset
   - DSP for full implementation of FX and by this
     - RoomEQ
     - Crossfeed
   - USB3 Class compliant mode

What to choose?

It is not so easy to recommend something if your use cases and connection demands are unknown to a large extent.
Please describe your setup and use cases in more detail; otherwise, it is difficult to give you good advice.

A little drawing would be useful that shows how the current devices are connected to each other as an overview!

Excel Sheet for comparing USB interfaces

Maybe it helps; I compiled an Excel about USB (and FW/TB)-based RME recording interfaces.
https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=35156

Setup Examples

Maybe it gives you a few ideas if you take a look at my setups.
The setup before was UFX III-based.
My current setup uses HDSPe MADI FX on a Windows 10 PC.
The blog articles also contain some pictures.

My current setup, HDSPe MADI FX based in my blog,
using HDSPe MADI FX, M-1620 Pro D, 12Mic, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ent … tup-en-de/

Previous setup based on UFX III:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ent … iii-en-de/
In the current setup, see above, I am using it as a DURec recorder and for ADAT I/O.
Also for any mobile demand in combination with an Octamic XTC, which I keep as a spare.
The XTC is also a fantastic format converter, having MADI, ADAT and 4x AES I/O.

As I mentioned, the M-1620 Pro and the 12Mic here also a few information from my blog:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ent … ter-en-de/
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/Ent … XTC-DE-EN/

In case you might be interested in the RME reference converters

For monitoring through Geithain RL906 and my HiFi I am using 2 ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, which perform D/A conversion in my setup.
In the HiFi corner I am using a TOSLINK switcher in front of it to be able to select between up to 4 digital sources.
Through the use of ADAT (optical) I have full galvanic isolation between the devices (UFX III, TV, BluRay Player) and ADI-2 Pro FS R BE in front of the HiFi.

If you should be interested in the RME reference converters, new models are coming, starting with the ADI-2 Pro EX.
They do a fantastic job for monitoring through active monitors and phones and have an incredible and very uniq feature set, which no other vendor offers. Really a high density of useful features.
You can deploy them in your setup using AES, ADAT, or SPDIF ports.
More information about these devices and their capabilities you can find here in my blog:
- Feautures, capabilties of the previous device generation.
   https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/Ent … ses-EN-DE/
   The new devices have just been released and not all information are out.
- How to integrate such a reference converter into your setup
   https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/Ent … our-Setup/

Here is a schematic of my recording/HiFi setup where Recording and HiFi are connected to each other.
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/file-download/2091/
The PC is also the music player, and the HiFi can act as "Monitor B" in TotalMix FX.
The RME Reference converters are doing a fabulous job in the Recording and HiFi corner.
I show you this as an example of how flexible RME components can be used together.

To sum up

A little more detail, and I or other gents from the forum can give you more concrete/better suggestions.

> 20 x 20 Burl Conversion with BMB2 card (MADI)

How do you get exactly 20 analog I/O with BURL products or is this your actual demand of analog ports?
Would 16x analog I/O be sufficient? Please more details, thanks.

AFAIK Apple ceased Firewire support in later products. I wouldn't buy such old products anymore.
You also depend on the TB to FW cable original from Apple which is expensive and who knows, how long this will be available.
Instead of this a Digiface USB would IMHO be the better option.

BUT ... If I see it correctly, adding another recording interface means that you have to use "aggregate device" and to route everything through the DAW. By this you would have an increased latency for your monitoring flows. Therefore I wouldn't recommend that. I would avoid such a setup for this reason.

The best monitoring mixes are those with least latency which are independend of buffer sizes that are project dependend and can be a little higher at times, especially during recordings for more safety.

Therefore it would be best to be able to route directly on the main interface, which leads to the following proposals.

Setup proposals - with one main interface

You have severel choices
a) replacing HDSPe MADI with UFX III which has besides MADI: 1xAES, 2x ADAT I/O and a lot of analog ports (also Mic/Inst)
b) adding an RME M-1620 Pro via MADI to the existing setup which gives you 16x analog I/O, 2 phones outputs and 4x ADAT I/O
c) replace BURL by M-1620 Pro if 16x analog I/O (suporting studio levels up to +24 dBu) is sufficient.
    then the BURL could be used to re-finance the purchase of the M-1620 Pro

If you are using single speed (48 kHz) then you have 64 MADI channels available.

Option b) has the charme that you can test drive BURL vs M-1620 Pro and later decide to go option c)
to sell the BURL to refinance the purchase of the M-1620 Pro.

I am also using the M-1620 in my setup, its an excellent product that I can recommend.
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ent … ter-en-de/

to option b) to add the M-1620 Pro:
MADI allows you to connect multiple devices by creating a serial chain of MADI devices.
You only have to look at the connector type whether you need LC or SC plugs and to get the proper multimode cable.

Multimode fiber types

Best stick to one multimode fiber cable type, nowadays usually OM3 or OM4 which is also being used in computer networks.
Color codes, old OM1 or OM2 uses orange, OM3 turquoise, OM4 violet.
Yellow cable is for single mode, you can't use that, won't work at all.

There is not difference in "performance" for MADI. I prefer OM4 because its about the same price and allows in computer networks little longer cable runs at higher bandwidth. We in the recording world do not benefit from that.
MADI has a much lower bandwidth so it doesn't matter, but if I can get OM4 to about the same price, then I use OM4.
Besides that I like the violet color (at least in the EU the color code is violet).
I wrote already something about that on forum, see here: https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.ph … 17#p251917

Serial chaining on MADI bus and cabling, transceiver

Then you chain this way:
     HDSPe MADI---SC----------SC---BURL---SC--------LC---M-1620 Pro---LC-----------SC---HDSPe MADI FX

Then you need these cables:
1x OM4 duplex cable SC-SC
2x OM4 duplex cable SC-LC

Get the Multimode SFP for the M-1620 Pro from RME. This saves you all possible hassles to pick the wrong one in terms of firmware and wavelength: https://rme-audio.de/sfp-module.html

Then you can route on the HDSPe MADI FX card, with near-zero latency and create excellent monitor mixes on the device itself.
Of course the same would be possible with an UFX III if you would choose option a).

BTW: MADI has only a very very low latency of around 3 samples at single speed per connected device in a serial chain.

And this is where TotalMix FX shines, to be able to create very flexible monitoring mixes directly on the main interface.

Proposal for channel assignment on the MADI bus

At single speed, 48 kHz:

  1-16 IN+OUT: M-1620, 16x analog ports
17-36 IN+OUT: Burl, 20x analog I/O
37-52 IN+OUT: M-1620, ADAT I/O
53-56 OUT: M-1620, 2x phones output
57-64 IN+OUT: 4 stereo channels free, e.g. for loopback purposes

Thank you very much for all your input.

My main rquirement is staying with the Burl converters. I do need the 20x20 channels. In are in recording situations for either full bands or big drumset, I’m almost always max these out. For outputs, I do analog summing of 18 channels + 2 monitor outs.

I just bought the Burl converters after a lot of testing.

I should’ve thought about the issues with latency and introducing the fireface in there, so yeah, that’s a no go. (That said, I still have the firewire > thunderbolt cable..I know it’s rare).

My only requirement is the 8 or 16 channel adat, it doesn’t have to be amazing conversion, just low latency.

I think it’s;
1. Just patch the outputs analog. I don’t need the summing when recording, but it would just save a lot of hassle and constant patching.
2. Move from the hdspe pcie to ufx3 - ~€2000
3. Move from the hdspe pcie to RME M-1620 Pro D ~ €3000

I have never worked with the rme dsp coupled with totalmix. I’ve heard many say I’m missing out but for now it’s not the thing why I would switch.

My monitoring conversion is handled by my Burl, the Tonelux Vrack is my monitor controller and using a lake people headphone amp.

Thank your for all your input. It is much appreciated.

For now I’ll just stick with patching. And later this year I will look further into the UFX3, as it is the most affordable option.

For now I unfortunatelly can’t justify that amount for just some extra adat channels.