New Sound Card? (Or at least new D/A Converters?)

Suntower 10 August 2010

My sound card is an RME 9652 which has ADAT outs. Working fine.

Now for years I've used a Frontier Designs Tango 24 for the D/A portion (to get to the studio control mixer) but the Tango24 now seems to be flaking out.

So... I'm looking for a decent, but inexpensive replacement for the DA portion. I already have a decent A/D converter so I don't really need any analog ins and I don't really need all 8 analog outs.

Rather I just need a set (or two) of balanced outs to go to the studio monitors/headphones/control center fed from the ADAT output of the RME card.

OR I could look @ a whole new sound card but perhaps that's overkill?

I saw that there is a Behringer ADA8000 which I could use for just the D/A if that's not -too- ghetto. I wouldn't be using the pres so I wonder how the D/A's sound?

Any thoughts?

TIA,

---JC

Topic Tags

Log in or register to post comments
11 views

Comments

The ADA8000 is just about adequate for driving on-stage foldback

Boswell Wed, 08/11/2010 - 05:23

The ADA8000 is just about adequate for driving on-stage foldback, but not really suitable for studio monitoring. Decent quality ADAT-interfaced DACs are few and far-between at this price level. I know of studios that use Alesis HD24XR hard-disk recorders purely as ADAT I/O, since they represent probably the best value for money for up to 24 channels of input and output. It's a great shame that they have been discontinued.

Your RME 9652 has 3 optical ADAT outputs and also an S/PDIF 2-channel coax output, so you could consider 2-channel DACs that have an S/PDIF input. Give us a bit more idea of what you are prepared to spend, and we may be able to help with some recommendations.

RME also makes an analog output companion card that plugs into y

thatjeffguy Wed, 08/11/2010 - 09:09

RME also makes an analog output companion card that plugs into your 9652, occupies a PCI slot next to your main card. I think its 4 channels, not sure, but check the RME website for details.

Jeff

Boswell, post: 352367 wrote: Your RME 9652 has 3 optical ADAT ou

Suntower Wed, 08/11/2010 - 10:03

Boswell, post: 352367 wrote: Your RME 9652 has 3 optical ADAT outputs and also an S/PDIF 2-channel coax output, so you could consider 2-channel DACs that have an S/PDIF input. Give us a bit more idea of what you are prepared to spend, and we may be able to help with some recommendations.

I just noticed RME has a card called an AEB4-O that seems like what I could use. Anyone have experience with this?

---JC

I just received the TC Electronic BMC-2 D/A Converter and Monito

anonymous Wed, 08/11/2010 - 12:23

I just received the TC Electronic BMC-2 D/A Converter and Monitor Control yesterday and will be testing it in the studio tonight. It accepts S/PDIF, Toslink, and ADAT Optical inputs. It might be just what you're looking for and at $300 is quite affordable for a quality D/A and monitor controller. I will report back with my test results.

Chris Adler
Mindtree Studios

Adler, post: 352379 wrote: I just received the TC Electronic BMC

Suntower Wed, 08/11/2010 - 17:29

Adler, post: 352379 wrote: I just received the TC Electronic BMC-2 D/A Converter and Monitor Control yesterday and will be testing it in the studio tonight. It accepts S/PDIF, Toslink, and ADAT Optical inputs. It might be just what you're looking for and at $300 is quite affordable for a quality D/A and monitor controller. I will report back with my test results.

Chris Adler
Mindtree Studios

WOW. Looks almost perfect for what I need. THANKS! (Makes me think there must be -other- stuff out there that would also fit the bill. Is there? I've out of the loop for a while.)

I thought I read that the Barringer ADA 8000 utilized the same K

RemyRAD Thu, 08/12/2010 - 03:10

I thought I read that the Barringer ADA 8000 utilized the same KTM (?) Converters as the Alesis HD 24xr's? If that's the case? Those should be just as adequate as any HD 24xr. I mean if you really want a secure your D2A you may want to check out the Lavery, API, Pyrimix, etc.? But you would be blowing a big chunk of cash that way. In one application are you using this equipment for? Crappy music or good music?

Crappy good engineer
Mx. Remy Ann David

The ADA8000 uses the Wavefront AL1101G A-D and AL1201G D-A conve

Boswell Thu, 08/12/2010 - 08:17

The ADA8000 uses the Wavefront AL1101G A-D and AL1201G D-A converters, as does the stock HD24. These converters were the original Alesis ADCs and DACs. When Alesis was acquired by Numark in 2001, the semiconductor part of Alesis was hived off as Wavefront Semiconductor, probably in the hope that they could get additional semiconductor sales with it as a separate company.

The HD24XR uses the AKM 5393 A-D and AKM 4393 D-A converters.

Suntower... The RME AEB4-O works perfectly with the 9652, I used

thatjeffguy Thu, 08/12/2010 - 09:10

Suntower...
The RME AEB4-O works perfectly with the 9652, I used to use both. RME's reputation includes making excellent converters, and I can personally attest that their customer service is tops!

Jeff

Suntower, post: 352388 wrote: WOW. Looks almost perfect for what

anonymous Tue, 08/31/2010 - 13:03

Suntower, post: 352388 wrote: WOW. Looks almost perfect for what I need. THANKS! (Makes me think there must be -other- stuff out there that would also fit the bill. Is there? I've out of the loop for a while.)

So I've been using the TC Electronic BMC-2 for a couple of weeks now and so far i've been impressed with its performance. The D/A converter is quite clean and revealing, to the point where its making me mix better because I have to work harder to get it to sound great. The monitor control section performs as expected as well.