Have you guys noticed that Audiomatica has released a new measurement package, the Clio-12 . It has a USB interface for the PC ....finally.
Was always hearing about problems with the older Firewire interface.
Has anyone seen this unit so far ? This must be basically a Clio-11 with a USB interface instead of the Firewire interface?
Was always hearing about problems with the older Firewire interface.
Has anyone seen this unit so far ? This must be basically a Clio-11 with a USB interface instead of the Firewire interface?
Hi Everyone:
I'm Audiomatica's N. American distributor and will do my best to answer you questions. For the stuff I don't know I'll find out, but not for at least a couple of weeks because Italy is on holiday for August!
I just updated my web site to cover CLIO 12 and you'll find quite a bit of detail there (see link in my signature line below).
FireWire was and still is in some ways a superior real-time interface to even the latest USB versions, but it was Apple's domain and they nuked it as well as a lot of the 3rd party market that was built on it. It was basically a replay on a larger scale of the Betamax fiasco in the mid/late 70's. This was rough on small companies like Audiomatica that threw their hat in the FireWire ring. Finally all that is history.
The USB2 based FW-02 that CLIO 12 comes with is very similar to the earlier FireWire based FW-01. It is a little more involved than just the USB2 interface card plugged into the top of the motherboard, but conceptually, not much. A downside is that USB2 doesn't offer the voltage that FireWire did, thus the FW-02 comes with a small 12VDC power adapter (and maintains the +18dBu output stimulus capability). For less that $30 USD you can get a 6000mAh battery to power it for about 11 hours, but I almost always make measurements with my laptop plugged in anyway, so this isn't a deal breaker for me.
For current owners of CLIO FW (versions 8-11), there will be significantly discounted upgrade pricing to move to CLIO 12 and have your FW-01 upgraded to an FW-02. That pricing hasn't been set yet, but will be within a couple of weeks. More good news is that the pricing for new CLIO 12 systems remains the same as for CLIO FW v11. I have (10) new CLIO 12 systems in stock ready to ship.
For those that want to upgrade, they will generally need to send their FW-01 audio interfaces to Audiomatica in Italy to do the work. This is far more involved than just swapping digital input cards and a rear panel, it involves soldering a new control chip on the motherboard, reprogramming that chip, replacing the electrolytics in question and then running full diagnostics with calibrated gear to verify performance. There is a reasonable probability that I will be able to do this as well for N. America, but it'll be a few weeks before I receive the components needed to upgrade the (2) CLIO FW v11 systems I own, which I will use to prove to myself and to Audiomatica that I can do as good a job as themselves.
Beyond the hardware, CLIO 12 offers significant software improvements that continue to make it my desert-island measurement system (if I could only have one, this would be it). I could go on and on about this, but my favorite is the significant enhancement in the Wavelet analysis for resonance detection. For those of you familiar with Ivo's excellent ARTA, CLIO 12 has Burst Decay plotting on steroids and it's called Wavelet Cycle analysis. This is both 2D and 3D and all significant parameters are adjustable to achieve the best time/frequency compromise for your situation. The bottom line is that the Wavelet Cycle displays allow excellent low frequency resonance analysis in addition to the excellent high frequency analysis available with "standard" Wavelet analysis and to a lesser extent, old fashioned Cumulative Spectrum Display plots.
Fire away if you have other questions or want crazy detail about anything I already touched on. I love measurement and began working with Audiomatica (and Outline for their best-of-breed turntables) out of a decade of using them for my own work. I'm a loudspeaker and acoustics geek for the love of it.
I'm Audiomatica's N. American distributor and will do my best to answer you questions. For the stuff I don't know I'll find out, but not for at least a couple of weeks because Italy is on holiday for August!
I just updated my web site to cover CLIO 12 and you'll find quite a bit of detail there (see link in my signature line below).
FireWire was and still is in some ways a superior real-time interface to even the latest USB versions, but it was Apple's domain and they nuked it as well as a lot of the 3rd party market that was built on it. It was basically a replay on a larger scale of the Betamax fiasco in the mid/late 70's. This was rough on small companies like Audiomatica that threw their hat in the FireWire ring. Finally all that is history.
The USB2 based FW-02 that CLIO 12 comes with is very similar to the earlier FireWire based FW-01. It is a little more involved than just the USB2 interface card plugged into the top of the motherboard, but conceptually, not much. A downside is that USB2 doesn't offer the voltage that FireWire did, thus the FW-02 comes with a small 12VDC power adapter (and maintains the +18dBu output stimulus capability). For less that $30 USD you can get a 6000mAh battery to power it for about 11 hours, but I almost always make measurements with my laptop plugged in anyway, so this isn't a deal breaker for me.
For current owners of CLIO FW (versions 8-11), there will be significantly discounted upgrade pricing to move to CLIO 12 and have your FW-01 upgraded to an FW-02. That pricing hasn't been set yet, but will be within a couple of weeks. More good news is that the pricing for new CLIO 12 systems remains the same as for CLIO FW v11. I have (10) new CLIO 12 systems in stock ready to ship.
For those that want to upgrade, they will generally need to send their FW-01 audio interfaces to Audiomatica in Italy to do the work. This is far more involved than just swapping digital input cards and a rear panel, it involves soldering a new control chip on the motherboard, reprogramming that chip, replacing the electrolytics in question and then running full diagnostics with calibrated gear to verify performance. There is a reasonable probability that I will be able to do this as well for N. America, but it'll be a few weeks before I receive the components needed to upgrade the (2) CLIO FW v11 systems I own, which I will use to prove to myself and to Audiomatica that I can do as good a job as themselves.
Beyond the hardware, CLIO 12 offers significant software improvements that continue to make it my desert-island measurement system (if I could only have one, this would be it). I could go on and on about this, but my favorite is the significant enhancement in the Wavelet analysis for resonance detection. For those of you familiar with Ivo's excellent ARTA, CLIO 12 has Burst Decay plotting on steroids and it's called Wavelet Cycle analysis. This is both 2D and 3D and all significant parameters are adjustable to achieve the best time/frequency compromise for your situation. The bottom line is that the Wavelet Cycle displays allow excellent low frequency resonance analysis in addition to the excellent high frequency analysis available with "standard" Wavelet analysis and to a lesser extent, old fashioned Cumulative Spectrum Display plots.
Fire away if you have other questions or want crazy detail about anything I already touched on. I love measurement and began working with Audiomatica (and Outline for their best-of-breed turntables) out of a decade of using them for my own work. I'm a loudspeaker and acoustics geek for the love of it.
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Apple didn’t abandon it, they upgraded it. Intel designed Thunderbolt to be able to support Firewire, USB, DisplayPort, and PCIe.
I’ve not heard of any firewire peripheral that didn’t work with Thunderbolt thru the adaptor.
dave
Technically, you are absolutely correct. Thunderbolt rocks. I have never had a problem making FireWire work through either Thunderbolt 2 or 3 with Apple's adapters and several other mfg's I tried. Laptops from Lenovo, Dell, Apple worked flawlessly. They even carried the bus powering properly for the FW-01, but it didn't matter - most customers didn't want the bother of the adapters or didn't know the adapters existed. Others were expecting absolute plug-and-play and didn't want the inconvenience. FireWire is actually easy to implement but amazingly few people realize that.
Anyway, I'm glad the support pain concerning the interface bus is over with.
My tools have arrived.
Nice laser too! Absolutely the best way to derive T/S parameters is with a laser - eliminates the issues that can bias the result with added mass or volume techniques.
Nice to see someone has an even messier bench than I do!
Nice laser too! Absolutely the best way to derive T/S parameters is with a laser - eliminates the issues that can bias the result with added mass or volume techniques.
Nice to see someone has an even messier bench than I do!
Yes, the laser is absolutely worth. It helps me a lot in TS as well as determining maximum-safe displacement for Rub&Buzz test.
That is the least messy area of the bench.
CLIO 12 has been on market for a while now. How are the experiences for those who have the new version of the CLIO and especially the USB version of the hardware.
Is it stable? Any issues with drivers? Any concerns on measurements repeatability (especially timing and phase)?
I'm considering sending in the FW-01 interface for USB upgrade and just wanted to query if feedback is all positive this far.
Is it stable? Any issues with drivers? Any concerns on measurements repeatability (especially timing and phase)?
I'm considering sending in the FW-01 interface for USB upgrade and just wanted to query if feedback is all positive this far.
Hi Ergo:
I've sold quite a few of the CLIO 12 systems and haven't had a single customer have a problem with any of them. I also use a pair of them almost daily and they are proving just as reliable as the FireWire versions.
The upgrade to CLIO 12 is completely between Audiomatica and you, thus distributors like me are out of the loop other than telling you about it and what to do.
You send your FW-01 box alone to Audiomatica and they upgrade it to CLIO 12 including new software and make the thing perform to new specs even if it requires repairs, electrolytic cap replacements, etc. Flat rate for this is (€290). They will send you an invoice that adds return shipping to that cost.
Once you pay the invoice, they use DHL and you’ll see it about 3 days later. Takes a week or two to do the work once they get your box. If you happen to use the QC version, the upgrade is (€450) plus return shipping.
Here’s the RMA form to fill out and include with your shipment:
http://audiomatica.us/docs/support/RMA.pdf
It would also be a good idea to forward it along with tracking to Audiomatica to give them a head’s up to be looking for your shipment (info@audiomatica.com).
I've sold quite a few of the CLIO 12 systems and haven't had a single customer have a problem with any of them. I also use a pair of them almost daily and they are proving just as reliable as the FireWire versions.
The upgrade to CLIO 12 is completely between Audiomatica and you, thus distributors like me are out of the loop other than telling you about it and what to do.
You send your FW-01 box alone to Audiomatica and they upgrade it to CLIO 12 including new software and make the thing perform to new specs even if it requires repairs, electrolytic cap replacements, etc. Flat rate for this is (€290). They will send you an invoice that adds return shipping to that cost.
Once you pay the invoice, they use DHL and you’ll see it about 3 days later. Takes a week or two to do the work once they get your box. If you happen to use the QC version, the upgrade is (€450) plus return shipping.
Here’s the RMA form to fill out and include with your shipment:
http://audiomatica.us/docs/support/RMA.pdf
It would also be a good idea to forward it along with tracking to Audiomatica to give them a head’s up to be looking for your shipment (info@audiomatica.com).
I have been using the USB CLIO12 (QC version with the amp/SW box) for months. The USB interface is solid. No issue has been encountered.
The only issue is changing output level during output enabled. A bump is generated instead of smooth and clean ramp up or down. I guess this happens in previous versions too.
The only issue is changing output level during output enabled. A bump is generated instead of smooth and clean ramp up or down. I guess this happens in previous versions too.