8ch. ADAT optical to AES w/ SRC included?

[alexdingley]

Hi there,

Just a curiosity; I have this older PCI-based synth card, and it runs fine in my vintage Mac — it has a pair of TRS outputs coming out of the PCI card, but it's also got optical in/out. Its max sample rate is 48KHz. I commonly run my DAW at 96KHz and I have a bunch of analog inputs, but also a TON of unoccupied AES XLR inputs.

Are there any boxes out there (even if they can do this, but weren't meant for this per se) that could turn 8ch of optical source signal into 8ch of AES output, and have the AES side word-sync to the primary DAW sample rate that the main boxes are running?

It looks like I found a way that I can get 2ch of AES — but not 8.

An old MOTU 896mk3 seems to have optical inputs/outputs, but also a single stereo AES in & another out. — it looks (from the manual) that you can set these boxes to a stand-alone operation mode, where it would just boot up as a converter, and the AES can be in a Sample Rate Convert mode. So, if I only wanted to worry about 2ch coming over the 8ch optical connection, I could totally have the 896mk3 act as an Optical → AES bridge that would pass signal digitally to my DAW. Now, that's cool (because I could persistently leave this hooked up without chewing up any analog ins / without having to patch-in the synth when I want it)... but it's only a single pair of AES signals.

I'm curious to see if there's any box that other folks have used that could do this for all 8ch of Optical source signals. It's not a critical mission, just trying to figure out if I can get this done so I could have the synth permanently connected into the current DAW via 8ch of AES.

[winky dinglehoffer]

Lucid 88192 appears to be able to do this (though not sure about the word-sync part). You can route ADAT Ins to AES Outs no problem--I've never done it, but it seems simple enough. Link to the manual if you're interested: http://www.symetrix.co/repository/88192_ug.pdf

[Nick Sevilla]

RME made one, maybe you can find one used?

It does exactly that: convert ADAT to AES and viceversa.

https://www.rme-usa.com/adi-4-dd.html

[alexdingley]

Got it, thanks for the confirmation, guys — the Lucid seems (now that it's long since out of production) to be the cost-effective route. I briefly looked at those used on reverb, but never snagged one. The RME seems to be most costly (and their stuff is pretty awesome from what I hear, so not surprising) so I'll keep an eye out for a cheap used Lucid.