• Registered: 2010-12-01
  • Posts: 9

Topic: FF UFX to Hifi optical connection

Hello community,

maybe its a stupid question but anyways. Is there any possibility to
connect the optical adat out of the UFX to the toslink in of my hifi
amplifier for multi monitoring? I´m confused i thought i´ve read
somewhere that it´s possible (i know that adat and toslink are two
different technics)

Thanks for help
rob123

  • Knut
  • Knut
  • DAW Mastermind
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  • Registered: 2007-04-06
  • Posts: 1,618

Re: FF UFX to Hifi optical connection

I think your hifi amplifier provides an spdif input. You can switch the 2nd ADAT I/O to spdif mode. This output carries now the same digital signal as the AES/EBU I/O.

Or do you want to use the spdif output for multichannel coded signals (surround)?

best regards
Knut

  • Registered: 2010-12-01
  • Posts: 9

Re: FF UFX to Hifi optical connection

yes my hifi amp has multichannel spdif input. And if it´s possible of course i would use a multichannel out of the ufx. But i think this isn´t possible. stereo would be fine

  • Knut
  • Knut
  • DAW Mastermind
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  • Registered: 2007-04-06
  • Posts: 1,618

Re: FF UFX to Hifi optical connection

I think you are mixing some things up. SPDIF supports two modes:

1) Stereo format for uncompressed PCM signals (WAV, AIF, mp3 ...). It can be used for the usual playback in a DAW, Windows Media Player, iTunes, Winamp and all other audio programs.

2) It can transmit compressed multichannel data for surround sound (AC3, DTS). But this needs an encoded surround signal from a video or game and a surround receiver (decoder) on the other end of the line. This mode is called SPDIF passthrough or transparent mode and with the UFX supported on Windows.

brst regards
Knut

  • From: Houston, TX
  • Registered: 2007-05-11
  • Posts: 1,191

Re: FF UFX to Hifi optical connection

Yep - The RME stuff will PASS any AC3/DTS surround streams from other applications (sounds like white noise if not decoded and pegs the meter right around 0dBfs), but you will not be able to feed 6 independent channels from your RME into your AVR over SPDIF with any succsess.  The RME is not a hardware AC3/DTS sourround encoder.

Please note for AC3/DTS Passthrough to work, the Software Send (middle row) and SPDIF/AES Output (bottom row) in TotalMix need to be set to unity gain (0.0), and I would also make sure none of the analog inputs are also feeding the SPDIF/AES output in TM (the noise floor of the analog inputs alone can "break" the encoded AC3/DTS stream when mixed in).

Your software player (I use WMP, Media Center, or VLC) and Windows will likely need to be configured for this to work properly.  I use an older Multiface-I into a NAD T175HD over SPDIF Toslink - AC3/DTS 5.1 decoding works like a charm! :-)

cool

MADIface-XT+ARC / 3x HDSP MADI / ADI648
2x SSL Alphalink MADI AX
2x Multiface / 2x Digiface /2x ADI8
  • Registered: 2010-12-01
  • Posts: 9

Re: FF UFX to Hifi optical connection

i don´t know how to configure the ufx. i use my standalone vienna imperial vst and would like to connect my AVR with spdif to the ufx only in stereo. can you explain what i have to do.

Thanks for help
rob123

  • Jeff
  • Jeff
  • Moderator
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  • From: USA
  • Registered: 2007-05-21
  • Posts: 4,619

Re: FF UFX to Hifi optical connection

In Fireface USB Settings, set "ADAT2 Output" to AES/SPDIF, then in TotalMix FX route the signal to AES Output.

Regards,
Jeff Petersen
Synthax Inc.

Jeff's Website