Insert Obligatory "I could do all this with a £500 USB interface and powered by unicorn farts" comment here. Don't mean to hate but its funny when the further you go into the meat of audio production the more those powered by raisins comments fall off. That said you can do a lot with a £500 interface and unicorn farts.
I actually tried a similar plug in now youve mentioned it.. , however, the output was mainly all rumble..... I mean cmon, at least give us some "Air " control....
And people were moaning about the price of your Apple Rac(k)intosh Pro... Being an actual professional is expensive as heck, but as long as the equipment helps you pay the bills, it's worth it
The thing is, because some people like to toy with audio, they feel like audio stuff (which includes the computer around which your setup is built) should be in a price range that's accessible to everyone. While at the same time they'll totally get why, say, a crane or caterpillar, or a big CNC, are too expensive for them to purchase, even though it's basically the same. Pro work requires pro tools (no pun intended...I guess ?), and they're expensive. Hell, again, I work almost daily on a PA/mixing desk setup that costs several hundreds of thousands euros, and would make ZERO sense for your average weekend warrior. Still absolutely fine for the room it's in, and for what we use it for. And has already paid for itself nicely. Which in the long run is all that matters.
@@NicD5150 thats because a) The manufacturer sells a highly special ized product b) expects you to have the money as a professional and c) companies generally calculate cost completly differently to your average guy. At the data center I work at we have routers, switches, servers and other stuff that simply doesnt make sense for your home network. Like the routers are configurable for a miltitude of Interfaces like optical ethernet and even infiniband or legitimate WAN optical connections going multiple kilometres to nearby cities. None of these things matter to you as a home user and Ive never seen anyone suggest differently, so I dont get why people think differently when it comes to audio.
@@BrunodeSouzaLino It has mostly the same parts, but there are quite a few exclusive parts to the Rack version (which means more R&D money). The rack is even more niche than the "normal" one, fewer units sold to cover R&D costs. Maybe the most important point though, is that the target demographic of the Rack is not going to be scared away by that markup so they might as well add it.
@@SuperSiggiboy The only different thing in the rack is the form factor. Everything else is the same. So much that Apple uses the same page for both, even when you're buying it.
Bro congrats on the Linus Tech Tips shout out! I was watching his video on the rack mounted Mac Pro and immediately thought of your videos then gasped when he spent nearly 3 full minutes talking about you and your videos specifically.
I know that I will never have this thing (Not only I can't afford it, but even if I could, I would have no use for it.) but it's still so interesting to see how it works. It's like watching a documentary about some industrial machines. But for audio. 🙂
I actually came over because of your mention on LTT, and it's been fascinating. I'm involved in cnc machining and run Mastercam so I'm completely familiar with your plight about sticking with a program you're familiar with to maintain a level of professionalism . I also completely understand having to explain even to people that SHOULD know better why even a very high end gaming version of (insert hardware here) won't actually be an upgrade. Love your candor, your honesty and listening to an actual pro talk about his experience... I'm also the pet of two cats, so I feel for ya there. Good luck with all of this and can't wait to see the final outcome!!
Echoing Zak, I was also led to your channel by Linus. I'm a 50 yr old software dev with a broad tech background; but most of what you've shown on the tech babble vids is new to me.. I find the gear fascinating and would be interested to get another glimpse or two of what it's like when you're writing / composing. Great stuff!
I have no idea about music production at all, but as an absolute computer nerd and system administrator at a data center I adore all these ports and connectors and lights and everything, really. That thing almost looks like the modular Cisco networking hardware we use, except it (almost) doesn't carry any network signals.
Neil - just wanted to say great youtube videos. you have no idea how much time you have saved me the last year as I upgraded my home studio moving into new home. keep up the great work!
@@NeilParfittMusic have been building a new studio ontop of an old tennis court. re-designing the studio layout was in need of inspiration. seeing how you got the flockaudio patchbay/Avid MTRX solution working, and all the routing with a tonne of synths helped me figure out which direction to go in. ive ended up with something similar. however i am using Cubase is my main daw, working with logic also. I have used the ERM Multiclock to drive alot of the midi and clock sync in the studio.
Long time Pro Tools native user here, love what you're building. I'll never understand Avid's support model- their flagship product has a potentially serious design flaw (no stand-off for the daughter card)? Critical mounting screws not reachable? And that additional I/O is marginally user installable, many users would screw it up, good job there. I wonder what they are thinking sometimes. I need 64 I/O to run hardware inserts in my home studio and I'm seriously thinking of moving to Studio One /Quantum. I am a weekend warrior and don't have anywhere near your requirements. Good luck with your new state-of-the-art rig!
Finally got to watch the LTT video. Congrats! I hope you keep making Rack Pro videos because you're the best person to do it, I enjoy watching them, and because it'll grow your channel.
The MTRIX is just a rebranded DigitalAudioDenmark DAD AX32 including MiniDigiLink IO. This was stock on older AX32 units before Avid made a deal with them to exclusively feature MiniDigiLink on the rebranded MTRX version. And Avid ramped the retail price up too roughly 1/3rd. The optical MADI option is not planned for field/user installation. The empty slot you mention on the CPU board is for the DANTE Brooklyn Bridge, not for the optical MADI. Besides the DAD brand there are also very versatile routers available under the brand name NTP, aimed at the broadcast and installation market. I installed a couple of the units at my clients sites, mainly composers for TV.
I have approximately 1% understanding of the words that you've said in this past 1 hour and 15 minutes I've watched of your content. But it was pretty cool seeing cool cable computer music stuff
I guess it is good not to cramp this board plus the modular boards in a 1u case. This is helping not to get warm. The thing that seems very cheaply made (or choosen) is the 2 pulse power supplies that are not shielded at all. The previous generations HD IO had very well designed PSU shielding.
having used AVID stuff, albeit older systems for graphics like the Avid Deko, it's never -completely- smooth sailing, haha. There's always some tinkering involved. Whether we like it or not, though, they're pretty much an industry standard at this point
ahhh You should thank DAD (Digital Audio Denmark for the "bad" design) ;) but it seems more scary than it is really. :) You should the me doing a CPU upgrade to the Mac Pro 6.1 ;) Thanks for the videos.
@@NeilParfittMusic Let me ear your thoughts of those AD cards compared to what you already have, at work I mainly use Digital, the route is -> HDX or HD Native - Digilink - MTRX - Dante (machine rom) - Rednet1 DA (studio). Again thank you for your time in showing us your setup and all your workflow. It's amazing.
@@unmeproject I only have the DA's. My Stereo mix input from my analogue summer is is a Dangerous AD+ (which is awesome). Otherwise everything is MADI throughout. How is the DANTE working out for you?
Also the fitting of the internal MADI board makes the complaint about the MacPro having to be disconnected to open it up, look a bit paltry by comparison!
I was watching Linus tech tip video on the rack mount Mac pro and said they should check out your videos on it...just for them to mention you in the video two minutes later
I’m a film tv editor and enjoy your videos. I read a lot about all the PT gear but don’t get a lot of hands on time. Love seeing the in depth tech bits. I finally have a edit suite with 7.1 audio via JBL LSR monitors. The 6325p-1 for the surrounds and the fronts are the LSR 4326p with the hiq interconnects. Neat speakers. They only made them one year. Sound pretty good. I wish avid would make a video IO box again with 96khz audio. They haven’t since the DX box. Currently working on a doc film with tons of high res concert and studio audio. Have to convert it for most systems. I have a older DX box but yeah. Always wanted to have a system with media composer running with PT locked together all the time. I wanna be able to edit by the sample in the timeline.
sir please elaborately explain what is your work, and also please explain each equipment you have, and also please explain how your business work thank you
Hey, just finished all your Mac Pro videos, and wanted to share that I love how you own this hate comments shit, and you just got yourself a new subscriber. I'm far from all this audio things, but it's really interesting to see how things are made behind the scenes from a really passion person. I personally don't care, Mac, PC, Linux, whatever works better for you, it's all hardware and that's what makes it interesting. Love your stuff, keep going, your doing great. Thanks.
Congrats 🍾 this is an amazing converter / interface/ thats really future proof! The sound ( transparency ) is supposed to be prism level or the “ high end “ of conversion. Hope it’s been an awesome upgrade for your studio. Cool it’s expandable & you can pick what you need! How many HDX cards do you run? I think u mentioned 256 total I/o for Pt HD/ Ultimate? Wow not much in the chassis. Very shocked you had to install everything, essentially completing the build on a 10k + interface. Avid Tech should be doing this to make sure everything works & is configured for the end user. Shocking. I’m looking at MTRX Studio but that plus HDX card & crossgrading to Ultimate is around 9k or more. I use an Apollo 8 now w/ PT, Live 8 & 9, Studio One Pro.
Thanks! yeah the MTRX is interfacing everything in the studio: HDX3, 192ch logic, synths, summing, AD... check out my dorkfest video if you'd like as it's all plotted out at the wiring level. As of now, I have 7 cards installed the MTRX (1 x AD. 3 x DA8, 2 x digilink, 1 x 256ch MADI) in addition to the internal MADI module and recently the DANTE option to start some tests (still too much latency for my use right now though). The MTRX has been the best infrastructure investment I've ever made for the studio and it's cleared out *A TON* of rack gear while simplifying the whole process... and unlike usual AVID branded equipment... it's dead silent in operation.
Man I fell into your channel because of the Mac video, but I’m still here even don’t understanding nothing about sound engineering I’ve found myself very curious about how all this stuffs work together... Could you please make a video explaining (for dummies) how this works? Like... the sound comes out of here pass through this an then... and then this do that with the signal.. etc... Thank you!! Great content
this uses an FPGA inorder to deal with the custom I/O you are doing while the cost of making this thing tops out at like 500 bucks programming an FPGA is a pain in the ass and now you need to make it so that any config a user comes up will work and do so at the speed needed is a very pricey matter. with this device you are paying for the software and software support not the hardware.
Question is the converters the same as the Avid HD I/O’s? Also your Mac Pro doesn’t fit in your rack because the track has to attach on the back as well? Or could it just kinda hang out the back a bit if you wanted?
no, they're better.. but it's like arguing over the taste of two great whiskies. That rack cabinet isn't permanent. I have a different cabinet coming that'll hold everything properly - and then this journey is complete!
Neil Parfitt I was asking more to see if you needed a specific length rack to fit the rack version in or not. I have studio racks and I don’t mind it hanging out of the back as long as I can install it fully. But does the rack have to be server length or something?
Another great video Neil ! But I've got one word for you on this one - "Galaxy 64" (does the number count as a word ...?). 64 channels of analog in's and 64 channels of analog out's, another 64 in's and 64 outs of digital, connects directly to up to four HDX cards, primary and secondary Dante, 64 channels of MADI, 2 Thunderbolt connectors (USB-C), totally unconstrained matrix'ing from anything to anything via very simple software, HUGE processing power (2 FPGAs, 12 DSPs) for Antelope's pretty awesome plugins (which can be normal plugins or hardware'ish inserts), AND Antelope's stupid good clock - all included. And BY FAR the best thing is, IT ISN'T AVID !! No avid hell to deal with - ever. All for way less than the MTRX will cost when it's populated with a small fraction of that. Plus, it sounds amazing where as avid's converters have always been blah at best (I've had a bunch of them and SO glad to be rid of them). Anyway, just another viewpoint. Don't want people falling down the avid hole-O-hell without realizing there are other options ! Thanks for another great video Neil ! You're awesome !
Thx! If you check out my dork fest 1 vid, youll see I need more I/o :) Also - just in case you weren’t aware, the MTRX isn’t really an avid product at all, it’s a digital Audio Denmark AX32 converter with an avid logo on it, so it really does sound outstanding. The only difference between this and the ax32 is that it does have a build in set of digilink ports.
@@NeilParfittMusic I haven't seen all your videos so I wasn't clearly aware of your I/O requirements but at least from an HDX perspective I think I remember you saying you only used the first two of three cards for I/O. If that's right, that's 128 I/O's total and the Galaxy provides 128. It didn't seem like you populated the MTRX with anywhere near that many in this video but I obviously could have misunderstood. That said, I'm DELIGHTED to hear it's not really an avid product. That's EVERYTHING as far as I'm concerned though it doesn't get you around having to DEAL with avid if it ever comes to that. The latest avid ceo is a big hardware guy and it made sense that the MTRX is a project he started but obviously not. Also, I just read my post and the following was not clear -> I am in NO WAY challenging your choice. You are WAY more qualified to make such a choice than I am and if you picked the MTRX, that was the right choice for you. But I despise avid like most audio people. I have years and years and years of horror stories like we all do. And pointing out that there are alternatives to avid-hell was irresistible so I did. And the Antelope IS truly amazing and so VASTLY superior to anything from avid I've ever owned anyway, the mention seemed justified. Anyway, you have been such a find. Thank you for taking the time you do to make these videos no less respond to my posts !!
After watching half a dozen of these vids, and now with the downsizing of your interfaces, I have noticed that you are keeping the Apogee Big Ben. Is that the Master Wordclock for the system?
Neil ! If you were setting up audio networking today which system would you use ? Madi ? Or ???? Which units would you use today for a user incorporating a daw and protools ????
it all depends on the I/o requirements. If it was me and what I use currently, the MTRX is still the interface of choice... or now the MTRX II as I could use thunderbolt 3 and remove the RME MADIFACE FX as Logic's audio driver. But, as I own these pieces already - there's no benefit to do it as it's spending money to result with the same thing.
If you do ever open it again you might just want to space those cards out to allow for better cooling. You have the slots, why not? Other than that, fascinating video. I'll never have high end stuff like this but appreciate it for what it is, so it's fun to live vicariously through others :)
@@NeilParfittMusic That would be a good reason to not do it then - always interesting to see how others use this high end gear. Thanks again for sharing!
I have a friend who designs PCBs. I always ask her why she is designing motherboards and GPUs, she always tells me I haven't got a clue how many different PCBs exist and what sort of things they do. From that perspective this is very educational, still not a clue what eny of them do, but wow, look at all those weird PCBs!
I know this isn't relevant to this video, but what are the small monitors you use next to your display in your studio? The ones that look like small ns-10s.
Wow! Thanks for this info. I am getting ready to pull the trigger on this same setup for Atmos and Scoring work I do. I may look into the MADI IO daughter board.. I wonder if they have given an option of having that pre-installed at a vendor or something? I could do it myself as I come from the old school of doing those types of things, but would not want to go thru what you did having no room to work without having to teater on disaster..
How nuts are you I/o requirements? The MATRX Studio is awesome if you dont need more than 64ch to/from Pro Tools. Also, the MTRX does have 64ch MADI on COAX without having to open it up...
@@NeilParfittMusic The problem with the MTRX studio is not really what I want here. I need more for what I am doing. Also the A/D converters in the Studio version are NOT nearly as good sonically as the MTRX Flagship.. Totally different box. That's according also to Jeff Komar at Avid. I have Avid HD IO which is comparable to the Studio version sonically, but that is not what I need, plus I do need a lot of IO for film work and Atmos mixing The MTRX is just a great rig.
@@NeilParfittMusic No problem.. DAD made the MTRX.. The other is for people who are just doing a lot of regular stuff unlike probably what you and I are doing-:) Plus the fixed architecture was not what I was looking for as you said, the cards are great and just keep adding in to up to 8. Also, I wondered if they fixed that thing in the manual with the screws.. Hey, it's Avid, so probably not..lol Hey do you know my pal Jack Lenz in Toronto? I nice guy and composer who is older now, but used to play with Seal And Crofts back in the day. He used to have a big space in downtown Toronto in an old Beauty Salon he converted. Not sure what he is doing now, but has been pretty successful for years. Very nice person.
@@gregoryivesdolbyatmosmusic ah yep, Lenz Entertainment. Funny coincidence is that his Son has the studio location I used to lease... small world :) One bummer is that the SPQ is built into the MTRX studio. it almost makes more sense if moving to ATMOS (which I'm considering at 7.1.4) is grabbing the MTRX studio and using that just for the DA and SPQ, so I don't lose all my DA and slots on the big MTRX for the SPQ (I literally have 1 slot left).. You could wire them in tandem via MADI or DANTE.. I'm not sure what I'll do yet. All I know is the SPQ card is 3 grand and then MTRX studio is 6K including the SPQ and 16ch DAC vs. having to sell my Trinnov DMON6 and spend 12k to get the DMON12... for the same money I'd be able to get the additional monitors as well. DADman can talk to both simultaneously.. Hrmmmm. Undecided. The Trinnov is amazing.
I know literally *nothing* about audio engineering but holy motherboard removal Batman, that was super interesting. Easy click of the Subscribe button today! :)
Neil, as a non native speaker and a non-audio engineer I find it hard to follow the information when you place text with information in addition to what you are saying. I think my brain finds it hard to follow 2 channels of information input at the same time. Please take it into consideration :) Love your stuff, I find your videos really interesting and I'm binging them hard right now 😉
ProTools is the de facto session format for audio post production nearly everywhere. Love it or hate it, it does its thing well. I love editing and surround mixing in it, but for composing and MIDI, Logic kills it
@@NeilParfittMusic I only tried the free version but PT seems so old compared to other DAWs. For example Folder tracks in a few months when all other DAWs had this for years. And the price is so steep considering all this specialized hardware that is probably not compatible with other DAWs. It kind of reminds me of QuarkXPress before Adobe InDesign destroyed it. I'd recommend you have a look at Studio One for your stereo work (since unfortunately it doesn't support surround yet), it's pretty great. Reaper is top notch too, but not sure it's compatible with macOS. Not trying to tell you how to do your business, just how it looks to someone with no previous investment in PT's ecosystem.
@@CedricMialaret It's a classic case of workflow. For every cool thing ProTools doesn't do vs something else, there are features that other DAWs dont work well. for me, a shortlist: Editing Audio in Logic is torture vs Pro Tools. Editing MIDI in ProTools is torture vs. Logic. Plugin Automation I prefer in Logic, but its bussing and surround audio handling is stomped on by PT. Logic sucks sharing sessions. PT is the world standard in the post audio pipeline for sharing as it just works. 99.99999% of the time. PT can sync numerous rigs perfectly. Others .. nope. ProTools is robust and the recorder of choice on orchestra stages where it's costing $500 a minute to be there. Would anyone use Logic to do this? Hell no.
@@NeilParfittMusic It would be fantastic, if you find time sometimes, to demonstrate those great PT features you love. Always good to learn & see what can be improved in other DAWs.
Wow - very scary. That RME card I have mentioned: it required firmware update and the manual told me if I did it wrong the whole card would be useless. This is awful stuff that these manufacturers throw at you. I hate it....
@@johnwade7430 hah! NEO! No this rack is the outside box that connects to those cards on the inside of the mac. The MTRX is the gateway to all audio signals in the studio
Dont know how to make this subtle... re-edit the P/N, if you want it hidden. There are some occasions I can read everything. Dont want to b*tch about out, but you clearly dont want it shown, and I guess you missed that. Maybe a post-it would do better next time :) Great Video, I really enjoy to see how all this stuff gets to use an the bs design an user has to deal with :D
Do you use HDX only because of the software limited Pro Tools inputs with Core Audio? I'm looking to get a MOTU AVB setup and then make some kind of Keyboard Maestro magic to change the inputs on the fly to work around the 32 input limit. Avid always being a pain in the ass..
Lord that is some expensive rack there for being empty.....for you I'm sure it's a proper upgrade for making serious money, but on the other hand it looks like a very basic concept of pcb boards ... How much was the rack and upgrades all together?
Difference is...Measuring equipment like oscilloscopes are expensive because the components that make it are also expensive, as they have to be high precision parts and such. Not so much in a Pro Tools HD system...
@@applemarkwantsvids All I can think of is that line from Shawshank redemption... But also, it's just AES Digital labelling - If you've ever seen a single AES input or output on an XLR connector - that's a stereo digital signal,. Same applies to DB25: AES 1-4 I/O is laid out in stereo clumps: DB25 #1 (1) ch 1-2 (2) ch 3-4 (3) ch 5-6 (4) ch 7/8 DB25 #2 (5) ch 9-10 (6) ch 11-12 (7) ch 13-14 (8) ch 15-16
William Morris Music the UFX+ is awesome - but this thing is designed to talk with Pro Tools HDX cards directly (which the RME doesn’t do). The MTRX patcher is sort of like totalmix, with the added bonus of being able to reorder the i/o in any order you need going to and from pro tools or i/o formats
@@NeilParfittMusic ah gotcha, I thought it must be something PT specific. I have the UFX+ on Cubase. The Apple/Avid combo seems pretty unforgiving on the wallet. Hope you enjoy the new streamlined set-up though, always satisfying to turn 5 bits of kit into 1!
The Pro Tools HD system is essentially similar to any other software protection scheme that requires external hardware, except that the hardware is several orders of magnitude more expensive.
It's weird seeing someone being almost scared to screw in some cards like that. To me it's second nature. Reminds me again not everyone is. Like that 🙂 Cool videos. Really like seeing someone with ypur profession making videos like these.
Very interesting product. Too bad it doesn't look as good as the old HD racks, especially with that AVID logo that's way too big and with the LED. At first glance it looks like some DIY project, considering the giant logo, galvanized steel chassis, how the extension cards are placed in and the little bits of things missing, which is a bit strange for a system this expensive.
This obviously went fine, but I kind of cringed at your joke about not petting your cat as a precaution for static. It might be a good idea to get a $3 anti-static wrist band just for the piece of mind when working on super expensive gear like that. I'm sure you're fine just touching the metal before but still.
The AVID MTRX is an awesome system with the routing capabilities to Dante, etc using Dadman software. IMO its probably the best out there. BUT why Avid why do you have to charge so much. To the point they lose so many customers. I feel if they cut the price in Half they would sell 4x as much and make more money.
Keep in mind it's made by DAD. So they have to make money, and it's AVID branded so they have to make money. But yeah.. i feel like the empy box should be 2 grand. They'd sell a kajillion of them.
Neil Parfitt word. That’s a lot of inputs. I have been composing for years using finale and Logic Pro for midi and your videos have opened a whole world of processing for me! Neat stuff ☺️
1. How the f am I making a living in music, I'm obviously a complete dilettante. Definitely of the unicorn farts set. 2. Ultra dumb q from an established dilettante: is this basically your whole I/O? And is this level of complexity and scale required because you're mixing orchestral sessions? 3. Do you find that replacing c for which the function f c ( z ) = z 2 + c does not diverge when iterated from z = 0, i.e., for which the sequence f c ( 0 ) , f c ( f c ( 0 ) ) ,etc., remains bounded in absolute value?
1. 442Hz! 2.Yes - this replaces everything I was using to get audio in/out of Protools, wrangling all audio coming from Logic, dealing with format conversion getting to my monitoring system. It's the do-everything box that replaces everything. 3. I=W1LL show U (at) BBQ
So much editing effort went into hiding the S/N. Lesson learned: Just use tape. XD Man what a crappy system though. I'm sure the functionality is perfectly fine, but wow is it ever built to a cost. I'm an electric engineer (with decent experience in audio as well). Those power supplies are inexpensive off the shelf Chinese parts (made by Meanwell), despite there being two of them. The part number is EPP-150-24. $56 CAD on Mouser. Buy two for free 1-day shipping. ;) They're fine, but cheap capacitors will be their eventual guaranteed downfall, especially if this system remains in a hot environment. At least it's easy to get spares. Avid would charge 10x their cost as part of servicing (RME does this too lol). No attempt to shield them physically for interference (slightly higher-end models come with their own shields). The LCD screen is absolute garbage - for a $5k+ system, coughing up $15 for an OLED display which is viewable from all angles would've been nice. This is zero effort. The entire system works on devices called FPGAs (those Cyclone III/IV chips). Those specific ones are about $10-30 per chip in volume (they're the "low-end" FPGAs.. high-end FPGAs are a whole different story in terms of cost/complexity). I actually program these exact chips for some of my jobs. A good chunk of the cost is from that, to get custom functionality as needed. Having said that, if all they're doing is routing and formatting audio data, that's very simple. Doing DSP (audio effects etc) via FPGAs is more complex. Implementing custom protocols can be complex as well. Having to move the main system board to install a card is ridiculous of course. The DAC card looks alright but far below Avid's broadcast designs even from 10 years ago (in terms of specific design considerations). No attempt to use high reliability capacitors (saving literally maybe $5 while guaranteeing eventual failure). This system was made by a third party and I don't really see any "avid fingerprints" on it from their broadcast engineering group who definitely knew what they were doing. This is a somewhat basic design but I'm sure that it meets its specs (hopefully haha). It's honestly a depressing system. I'm a professional as well, and I get the whole "if it does the job and integrates well, it's good enough" logic, but it still feels bad to pay this kind of money to get a device with maximum cost-cutting at every corner. A lot of "big" manufacturers have started going in this direction, and Avid is no exception. I work a lot with high-reliability industrial/military gear and even these professional devices are depressing by comparison, especially since overall build quality from these types of companies used to be far better. Gotta keep pushing those profit margins eh?
whatlions yeah I didn’t think about it till after. Doesn’t matter really. Oh well. This thing is a repackage of a DAD AX32 by Digital Audio Denmark for AVID. So the only thing that’s them is the front logo . Sorta like when RME made stuff for Stienberg for a minute. The routing, format conversion and AD/DA is better than anything avid offers of their own. But yeah, it’s really interesting to hear your EE take on it! And I’ll probably stock up on a few supplies while I’m at it. My modular synthesizer uses these massive 2U acopian linear supplies which are probably night/day better! Speaking of gouging... the optical transceivers are $300 each from avid and $40 from mouser. It’s such a load of balls. I’ve ordered a few and if they work, I’m returning them. Gahhh!!
also forgot to add that yeah the box is sifting between a ton of formats, proprietary AVID communications and various audio formats: MADI, AES etc etc..
@@NeilParfittMusic Definitely a useful product overall given all the format conversions! Maybe the blessing in disguise here is that parts are cheap to get on your own haha. If possible, please update me if the transceivers from Mouser worked. :o I'm very curious (I'm Nick btw). I hope Avid didn't "customize" theirs in some deliberate way to lock you out of retail options. Acopian makes very nice supplies for sure. I would argue linear supplies aren't a requirement for high fidelity audio these days, providing that the product is well-designed. Lots of super high quality switching PSUs can be had from Vicor and others. When they're well-filtered (which definitely adds cost), you get the best of all worlds - very high efficiency, low weight and very clean power. A lot of products I make are in that category. I have a nice Class A amp which is basically a space heater, but I also have a very unique 350W RMS Class D amp which uses 10W at idle and sounds far better. It's on 24/7 and I don't even notice it on the electricity bill. I'm a big fan of well designed modern gear like that. All problems associated with high-efficiency gear are solvable. The power of science muahaha! >:D
@@oriole8789 Hi Nick! Yeah I'll know soon enough as they just arrived. The linear supplies made a huge difference on my modular synthesizers as those things are super sensitive to noise getting into the audio path.
Great so all we have to do is become an electrical engineer, buy all the parts and build and test it ourselves and we can save all that money! Thanks!!!!
For working on open computers, interfaces, etc, you should buy a big anti-static mat, connect it to a ground, and wear an anti-static strap. Walking on a carpet can generate up to 35,000 volts (they can zap 30 Amps in just a few ns, destroying delicate electronics). There is a recent video by Wurth Electronik Group entitled "askLorandt explains: ESD Basics" with more info. Also, do NOT touch any electrical contact areas, particularly for RAM, PCIe boards etc. but also cable ends; dirty contacts will reduce reliability (my buddy ran a huge server farm and has confidential stats to back that up).
