Thanks Brent and Ralf. I also wrote to the RME forum. Seems that even if I do get a new MF/HDSP combo - one of the respondents thought the sync wouldn't be sample-accurate if I were to combine an MFI with an MFII. He thought it would though if I got hold of a second MFI - but wasn't sure. I'm waiting to see if anyone from RME confirms. Does anyone here have an opinion on that? I'd rather not buy a used MFI - as things often go missing in the post in Brazil - and taxes on used imports are huge. Does anyone on the list have a 16-out system running on linux - with firewire, usb or otherwise? Just came across some info on the Allen and Heath ICE-16. Looks great but couldn't find anything about linux drivers... Also has unbalanced outs - but I'll be using short cables to multichannel amps so that should be Ok. cheers, Em Seg, 2013-05-13 às 17:11 -0500, Brent Busby escreveu: > On Mon, 13 May 2013, Iain Mott wrote: > > > I have an RME Multiface I/HDSP PCI card. This gives 8 balanced audio > > outputs. However I require an extra 8 outputs for a specific project. > > I've also looked at my options for expanding beyond 8 analog i/o's on my > Multiface II.... > > > One option is to sync two Multiface/HDSP PIC card together. Although > > not exactly necessary, I understand the extra hdsp card is needed if i > > wish to use sampling rates higher than 48k which i do. There are some > > other set up benefits too I gather. > > Something to be aware of is that although you can have up to 3 > Hammerfall cards in a single computer, they cannot share any kind of bus > for monitoring or headphones in TotalMix (or its Linux clone, > hdspmixer). You will end up with separate headphone lines, which you > may be able to merge with cabling yourself at the expense of a couple of > inputs, but that's messy. > > Alternatives to getting a second Hammerfall card include: > > * Taking advantage of the digital i/o's that you already have... I've > had some trouble finding the exact specs of the Multiface I, but on the > II, there is an SPDIF digital i/o (2ch. in, 2ch. out), and an ADAT port > (8ch. in, 8ch. out). The analogs, the SPDIF, and the ADAT can all be > used at the same time, but the catch is that because ADAT itself has a > 48kHz limit, there's no way to use the ADAT's at 96kHz unless you bind > the 8 i/o's together as 4 virtual i/o's that each combine two channels > to get double speed (called SMUX). > Since I've seen that the Multiface's analog converters don't > really sound right (probably due to filter design) unless you run it at > 96kHz, and since it's not possible to run the analog i/o's at 96kHz > while you run the digitals at another speed, the net effect of all this > boils down to that you're going to want to run at 96kHz, and if you're > using the ADAT ports at that speed, you will have to use SMUX even > though that will cut you down to 4 ADAT i/o's instead of 8. > And the net effect of all that totally is that you have the > potential for up to 14 i/o's if you put all the analogs, > SMUX'ed-together ADAT's, and the SPDIF l/r pair together and use them > all, from one Hammerfall card. Not quite the 16 analog i/o's you'd get > from having two Hammerfall's, but at least it all ends up in one unified > TotalMix/hdspmixer session with one headphone monitor. > There is one further complication: There aren't a lot of > 8-channel standalone ADAT AD/DA's out there that I've seen that aren't > either rediculous expensive or suspiciously cheap. It's amazing how > much you might end up paying for those 4 SMUX'ed i/o's if you go this > route. RME themselves make one, but it's one of the expensive ones, and > oddly, it costs way more than getting a whole second > Hammerfall/Multiface setup even though it does far less. (But again, if > you get that second Hammerfall, it will have its own separate busses in > TotalMix.) > > * You can go with RME MADI, which is MADIly expensive, but has an insane > channel count. Sadly, as far as I know, there's no support in Linux for > TotalMix or anything like it if you go this route, though it is driver > compatible with Alsa and Jack. You just won't have any GUI mixer like > hdspmixer, which would kind of stink, especially on such pro-grade > hardware. > > * You could get someone else's audio hardware, perhaps taking adventage > of FFADO to get it done by firewire...but then you'd lose the stability > and it-just-works experience that you get from the RME Multiface on > Linux. Or you could take a chance on USB, which is becoming more and > more popular despite that it reminds me of trying to use a Volkswagon > Bug for an Antarctic polar expedition. > > All of the above is why, for the moment, I'm just living with my 8 > analog i/o's and dealing with it. :-/ At least the analog i/o's the > one Multiface comes with just work, and splendidly. > _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
