The Dante Brooklyn 2 can do up to 24/192 PCM which is all most DSP chips do today anyways. Ravenna can do up to PCM 24/384 and DSD 256. I have some 8 channel Ravenna boards coming shortly to try out.
That's yout opinion, and I respect that. But others have quite different opinions compared to Hypex in general (of course not the new line, that almost noone can have heard).
I have listend to a lot of amplifier and also many class D amplifiers. And although they can be different we are not talking gamechangers - the subtle differences is only important to the nerds like us. I do get some Pascal amplifiers today (IMG makes som very cheap pascal ampifiers), so I still can't say anything specific on these.
To me a gamechanger is a hugh step forward in technology or price, not only a marginal improvement in specs and sound.
Well the last generation Hypex plate amps used the UCD series amps. These Ncore MP series are leaps and bounds better in my opinion. The Pascal was better than the Icepower, but not as good as the MP. I think Hypex has the best all in 1 amp module on the market as of today. And the amps are very important. In my opinion all these plates are missing is an AOIP interface. Even if was an optional add on board.
I think it will take a lot of time before this becomes standard in consumer electronics.....
Well it's pretty much standard in most newly released pro sound gear today. The limiting factor in the past was cost, and compatibility. This new Broadway chip from Dante is changing that. And they are already shipping. With the AES67 standard, all of the major AOIP protocols are compatible now. They sorted all of that out.
Very good video here explaining it all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmdFXxQp_Ic
Doesn't seem to matter in the pro world. Apart from a small handful of audiophile labels, all recording and processing is done in 48 or 96 kHz PCM (and up/resampled to DSD and silly sample rates if needed for "audiophile" releases).
But regardless on how it sounds, most audiophiles won't buy into anything without the highest resolution support. They will overlook all of the benefits of going active, and only focus on what matters the least. Audiophile beliefs and myths are the biggest roadblock to consumer adaptation to active speakers. They imagine in their heads that they are being limited. When in fact doing things the traditional way with multiple boxes and passive crossovers ensures limitation.
However when you have the ability to support high resolution DSD natively, you can do all of the DSP and SDM/SRC on PC much better than on DSP chips. Then use very simple DAC's with a very short signal path in the speakers. But we are getting far beyond the complexity and price point of these plate amp at this point.
What matters here is total system cost/performance. It might be hard to beat with these plates installed into the backs of a set of 2 or 3 way speakers. It's just a shame you need a USB to spdif/aes/ebu bridge in the mix, rather than just network connecting them and having them pop up as sound devices on any computer on the same network.
Then there's the latency and clock skew issues of daisy chaining AES/EBU and using SRC/reclocker chips. Unless they came up with some clever way around that. With Ravenna, endpoint to endpoint clock skew is around 2 nanoseconds. Don't confuse this with latency. Because that's nothing to do with the clocking. When they talk latency, they are referring to the time it takes for the signal to make it through the system. You still use a master clock for each endpoint. Only the master assigned grandmaster, is responsible for they syncing role or "skew".
Sure. The real question is if that market actually matters these days.
I see USB as a transitional technology that will quickly become legacy.
For an interesting glimpse into the politics around that, I recommend AES67: How the Net Was Won.
So I did
.Very friendly Niels from Hypex told the following, and is OK with presenting the info here:
The recently presented NCAS500MP is an OEM product; not available for DIY.
Then, more interesting, the active DIY modules series AS and PCS2 will disappear and be replaced by a series of socalled Fusion Plate Amps; scheduled for the third quarter of this year.
The Fusion series will have 8 models in total; there will be 1-way, 2-way and 3-way models based on Ncore technology and DSP based on adau1701.
The Fusion series will be available for OEM and DIY (Fusion...).
Hope this helps to get things clear
So I did
Very friendly Niels from Hypex told the following, and is OK with presenting the info here:
The recently presented NCAS500MP is an OEM product; not available for DIY.
Then, more interesting, the active DIY modules series AS and PCS2 will disappear and be replaced by a series of socalled Fusion Plate Amps; scheduled for the third quarter of this year.
The Fusion series will have 8 models in total; there will be 1-way, 2-way and 3-way models based on Ncore technology and DSP based on adau1701.
The Fusion series will be available for OEM and DIY (Fusion...).
Hope this helps to get things clear
Thanks for clearing things up.
I think that's what the old unit's used. Problem is using those chips ensures you won't have perfect sync between plates. There's only 1 way to get perfect sync, use the analog inputs. Then you require a DAC before the plates.
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Then a dual DLCP, Grimm LS1 or Kii Three would not work either......
Yes they work, but just not as good as using AOIP and having only 2 nanoseconds of skew between endpoints. To my ears, and others who tried as well, the soundstage was off when using the digital inputs on the last gen of plates. The AU1701 downsamples all Audio to 24/48 anyways, so the 24/96 limitation of the Dante broadway chip wouldn't be a bottleneck. You also get a direct I2S output to the DSP from a chip located a few mm away. You won't beat that. Rather than cables, pll generation, USB to AES/EBU bridges etc.
The latency of a asrc is fixed and dependend of the conversion ratio:
http://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j...XlSDliSv1iyYcgWbA&sig2=L2j6dFZ_qI7AFsOJhjzCRA
Page 7.
The only contributing factor of a time shift is the clock in the different end points. Use very good clocks ( or a central clock), no problem will occur.
http://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=j...XlSDliSv1iyYcgWbA&sig2=L2j6dFZ_qI7AFsOJhjzCRA
Page 7.
The only contributing factor of a time shift is the clock in the different end points. Use very good clocks ( or a central clock), no problem will occur.
You will never get clock sync as good as the IEEE 1588v2 PTP grandmaster clocking scheme using that method. It's just a flat out inferior way to do things compared to AES67. And I don't think any of the Hypex engineers would argue this either. Eventually everything will be going to this standard. Eventually Hypex will adopt. I think the sooner the better. Especially since low cost ASIC's are here today.
https://wiki.mef.net/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=29230774
I bet a Dante module could be built to pop right into that cutout already on the plate. Or even better an Archwave Ravenna based endpoint. I did a bit of research. Those bridge modules that Hedd is using in their active line, are actually sourced from a Chinese OEM supplier. They can provide turn key modules ready to pop right in.
http://www.dragon-acoustic.com/products.php?id=15
Wink wink
http://www.dragon-acoustic.com/products.php?id=15
Wink wink