Re: Multichannel audio interface

Hi Richard,

(...)
The products from RME are a good place to start; they cover both cards and Firewire/USB, and beyond Windows and OS X they also have good Linux support. The cards use AES, MADI etc; and you will therefore need separate analog converters too; which is where much of the cost will lie.

http://www.rme-audio.de

Many soundcards support external clocking, so one option that ~might~ be cost-effective is to use mid-price devices that can be clocked together; but I can't think of examples offhand. For recording a mic array you will of course need to guarantee sample-accurate timing across all channels. So you can only use multiple "cheap" 8 channel cards if you can slave them together to an external clock.

Noet that many devices advertised as, san 32channel cards, arrive at that figure by adding up all the different types of i/.eo - analog, ADAT, AES, etc. So the Firewire/USM devices from RME may offer up to 56 channels, but perhaps only 10 analogue inputs.

Basically, you will have to decide what i/o bus format to go for - ADAT(s), multiple AES/SPDIF, MADI, and so on.


This is probably a good question to send to the sursound mailing list; it is well-subscribed by people involved, one way and another, with lots of audio channels.

many thanks for information - that is what I was looking for ! :-)
We think about our own multichannel audio interface (AKM AK5388 device is a good candidate), but we want to build a prototype measurement system first.

Best regards

Roman Rumian
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Muxes missing on Winter Hill
    ... It's a common problem with these DVB-T PCI cards. ... >> When I do a scan I get the names of the channels on the 6 Winter Hill ... and even though the route is digital decode analogue encode digital, ...
    (uk.tech.digital-tv)
  • Re: Muxes missing on Winter Hill
    ... It's a common problem with these DVB-T PCI cards. ... correspond to muxes 5 and 6 for the Winter Hill B transmitter which is ... On 2 different STBs I get only single channels for all. ... These signals are however going through a roof amplifier, ...
    (uk.tech.digital-tv)
  • WME & Multiple TV Tuners
    ... I'm trying to stream multiple TV channels to my computers in my house. ... I would like to have one computer with four tv tuner cards ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsmedia.encoder)
  • Re: Once again multi channel sound...
    ... - as I was hoping - should offer 4 stereo pairs. ... What interface are you using to play the sound now? ... with my perfectly working code with the M-Audio cards (up to 6 cards in one ... Furthermore I need more than 4 channels. ...
    (microsoft.public.win32.programmer.directx.audio)
  • Re: Multichannel audio interface
    ... it is hard to find a 16 or more channel PC card or USB device for microphone array recording. ... The products from RME are a good place to start; they cover both cards and Firewire/USB, and beyond Windows and OS X they also have good Linux support. ... MADI etc; and you will therefore need separate analog converters too; which is where much of the cost will lie. ... For recording a mic array you will of course need to guarantee sample-accurate timing across all channels. ...
    (comp.dsp)