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Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

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1961TC4ME

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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostWed Nov 15, 2017 1:00 pm

sjkartchner wrote:
1961TC4ME wrote:One thing I've noticed, and I don't know if this is inherent to the unit I bought or to S/PDIF in general, but the out coming signal from the converter is a bit weak (i.e., not nearly as hot) compared to the other regular analog outputs (channels 1-8) which required me to raise the db output for the 2 channels (9 & 10) in the audio output section of Hauptwerk. I had to bump channels 9-10 up to +8 to get a sufficient signal, simple enough to do and it now works well.

Marc


Output levels differ significantly between professional and consumer protocols, and S/PDIF is definitely a consumer protocol. See this article for a good explanation: http://www.harmoniccycle.com/hc/music-26-+4dBu-10dBV.htm.

So, if you have a somewhat higher end audio interface such as an RME or MOTU, even though the analog audio outputs will be at a professional level, the S/PDIF output (pre-conversion) will still be at a consumer level. As noted at the link, the difference in levels between the two is significant.

Here is a link that explains how the S/PDIF consumer digital protocol differs from the AES/EBU professional digital protocol: http://www.rane.com/note149.html.

P.S. Don’t get lost in the tall weeds of trying to figure out how the digital protocols compare with the analog protocols — the level differences between the two (professional vs. consumer) in either domain is the central point to be appreciated.


OK, this brings up a question after I decided to investigate. I've known all along that my 1010LT has two selections for the S/PDIF which can be chosen by ticking one box or the other, 'consumer' and 'professional.' It has been set to 'professional' since day one. Selecting either choice makes zero difference in the sound or the audio output level to channels 9-10 which on the 1010LT is the S/PDIF channels. Am I missing something here?

Marc
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jkinkennon

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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostWed Nov 15, 2017 1:21 pm

1961TC4ME wrote:OK, this brings up a question after I decided to investigate. I've known all along that my 1010LT has two selections for the S/PDIF which can be chosen by ticking one box or the other, 'consumer' and 'professional.' It has been set to 'professional' since day one. Selecting either choice makes zero difference in the sound or the audio output level to channels 9-10 which on the 1010LT is the S/PDIF channels. Am I missing something here?


Hi Marc, I wouldn't expect any changes to the sound as the input and output changes between 'consumer' and 'professional' would cancel each other. You are just operating at a different level within the 1010LT itself while the gain from input to output remains the same. The exception would be if you were running a very hot or a very weak signal in which case there could be distortion or noise floor effects. Interestingly, if you have software with meters that show the audio levels for the 1010LT you will observe different reference levels relative to the 'consumer' or 'professional' 0 dB output.
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magnaton

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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostWed Nov 15, 2017 1:27 pm

1961TC4ME wrote:OK, this brings up a question after I decided to investigate. I've known all along that my 1010LT has two selections for the S/PDIF which can be chosen by ticking one box or the other, 'consumer' and 'professional.' It has been set to 'professional' since day one. Selecting either choice makes zero difference in the sound or the audio output level to channels 9-10 which on the 1010LT is the S/PDIF channels. Am I missing something here?

Marc


Probably has something to do with the older copy protection protocol. Since the S/PDIF is a digital output that can be fed into an S/PIDF digital input of another device you could make a digital copy of the source. If your digital source material contained these inherent protocols (akin to Dolby digital encoding for DVD movies) the receiving device would need to correctly interpret them to allow it sound correctly and even at all. Thus the settings for consumer or professional. There would be no change in fidelity.

Danny B.
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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostMon Nov 20, 2017 7:37 pm

magnaton wrote:Yes that is a classic design, having a speaker pair per division. Another design within Hauptwerk is to have multiple speakers in a single Audio Group. You assign an algorithm to this group on how notes and pipe ranks are divvied out to the number of speakers in that group. This allows all the speakers to share the load without any doubling. Going into further depth on this subject of mult-channel routing could quadruple the length of my response so I'd suggest you search the forum on multichannel audio design. For step-by-step details on multiple speakers in a single audio group, here is an excellent resource from Paramount Organ Works.
http://paramountorganworks.com/downloads/ParamountAudio.pdf

Danny B.


I tried this suggestion today but it failed. What happened is that when I played some keys were "loud" where other keys very soft.
I created 3 audio outputs ( 1 for every set of speakers) ; I assigned the outputs to the channels (1-6) and then assigned all the Audio outputs to the default Output group. The setting for the Output group is "cyclic within octave, Octaves and ranks cycled.
Did I miss an important step that is causing this behavior?

Thanks,

Frits
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mdyde

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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostTue Nov 21, 2017 4:27 am

Hello Frits,

fdhartog wrote:I created 3 audio outputs ( 1 for every set of speakers) ; I assigned the outputs to the channels (1-6) and then assigned all the Audio outputs to the default Output group. The setting for the Output group is "cyclic within octave, Octaves and ranks cycled.


If it's configured correctly, then with that arrangement, and with a single stop/rank drawn, you should hear a C note sound from one stereo pair of speakers, then the adjacent C# note sound from another stereo pair of speakers, then the adjacent D note sound from the final stereo pair of speakers (and so on).

Is that happening for you?

fdhartog wrote:What happened is that when I played some keys were "loud" where other keys very soft.


Am I right in understanding from your earlier posts in this thread that you have three identical pairs of Behringer B2031 speakers, with two of the pairs connected directly to the analogue outputs on your Focusrite Scarlett 6i6, and with the third pair now connected via a DAC that's connected to the 6i6's S/PDIF output?
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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fdhartog

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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostTue Nov 21, 2017 11:58 am

Hello martin,

I checked if the notes did come from different speaker pairs but that doesn't seem to be the case . It appears that one pair does the majority of the notes. Some notes that come form other pairs sound very faint. I must have done something incorrectly but have a hard time figuring out what. I also wonder if I can somehow trim the volume for the individual speaker pairs so they are all about the same.
Thanks again for your input.

Regards,
Frits
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engrssc

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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostTue Nov 21, 2017 12:01 pm

mdyde wrote: and with the third pair now connected via a DAC that's connected to the 6i6's S/PDIF output?


With many S/PDIF adapters, the output is noticeably softer compared to the direct analog output(s).

How have you setup your Audio Groups as far as the pipe speech of each pipe to be output via your sound card to the speakers?

In "Output allocation within groups" you should choose one of the Cyclic options. Either Cyclic across whole rank/compass or Cyclic within octave. (which is (C/C# split, etc. )

Rgds,
Ed
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mdyde

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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostTue Nov 21, 2017 12:17 pm

Hello Frits,

fdhartog wrote:Some notes that come form other pairs sound very faint.
...
I also wonder if I can somehow trim the volume for the individual speaker pairs so they are all about the same.


You can in principle adjust the level of each logical audio output (stereo pair) separately either:

1. Using the 'Speaker level adjust (dB)' setting on Hauptwerk's 'General settings | Audio outputs' screen, or:

2. In your audio interface's driver control panel (assuming it has a virtual mixer there, which most do).

However, as Ed mentioned, S/PDIF outputs on your audio interface might not be at the same level as the main outputs, and it's important that you don't don't any outputs up so much that they distort ('clip').

fdhartog wrote:I checked if the notes did come from different speaker pairs but that doesn't seem to be the case .


If you'd like to send us a diagnostic file ('Help | Create a diagnostic file': http://www.hauptwerk.com/forms/support/ ) then I could have a look at your settings to see whether they appear to be configured correctly for three stereo pairs within a single cyclic group.

Could you also confirm the answer to this previous question of mine?:

mdyde wrote:Am I right in understanding from your earlier posts in this thread that you have three identical pairs of Behringer B2031 speakers, with two of the pairs connected directly to the analogue outputs on your Focusrite Scarlett 6i6, and with the third pair now connected via a DAC that's connected to the 6i6's S/PDIF output?
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostTue Nov 21, 2017 1:32 pm

Martin,

Sorry, missed your question. Yes, I do have 3 pairs of B2031A monitors. I just uploaded the diagnostics file.

Thanks !

Frits
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mdyde

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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostTue Nov 21, 2017 2:08 pm

Thanks, Frits.

I can see from your diagnostic file that you do indeed have Hauptwerk correctly configured for three stereo pairs (using your Focusrite USB ASIO driver's channels 1+2, 3+4 and 5+6 respectively) within a single audio output group (using the default cycling algorithm), so everything is fine from the Hauptwerk side, and pipes will indeed sound cyclically amongst your three pairs of speakers as you play a chromatic scale on any given rank (as distinct from just the notes in any given musical scale, since that would inherently skip keys in the octave).

fdhartog wrote:Sorry, missed your question. Yes, I do have 3 pairs of B2031A monitors.


I assume that you mean that the answer to the rest of my question was 'yes' as well, i.e.:

mdyde wrote:with two of the pairs connected directly to the analogue outputs on your Focusrite Scarlett 6i6, and with the third pair now connected via a DAC that's connected to the 6i6's S/PDIF output


In that case you should just need to adjust the levels to balance them (as mentioned previously), which is probably best done in the audio interface driver's control panel.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostTue Nov 21, 2017 2:34 pm

Martin,

I checked if it had possibly anything to do with the speakers hooked up to the DAC so I turned on only that pair. When I play the C it sounds soft but the C# is laud. Both notes come through the same speaker pair. The D doesn't sound at all so I assume it is send to one of the other 2 pair that are turned off. Shouldn't C and C# come from different speakers? Sorry for all the basic questions but trying to wrap my head around this concept.

Regards,
Frits
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mdyde

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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostTue Nov 21, 2017 2:59 pm

Hello Frits,

As you have it configured currently in Hauptwerk, yes -- provided you're using a single virtual rank (as opposed to a surround sample set that has 'front' and 'rear' virtual ranks both sounding simultaneously, for example), then C and C# within that rank will go to separate pairs of your audio interface driver's channels (1+2, 3+4, 5+6).

Do the notes go to separate speaker pairs if you use St. Anne's?

Had you been trying to use a surround sample set's rank?
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostTue Nov 21, 2017 2:59 pm

Could this be a room resonance issue? Room resonance occurs especially with bass notes: some notes give a very boomy sound, while adjacent notes can be almost silent. For a very large part, this can be corrected with room correction software (as suggested by me and someone else at the start of this thread). As a temporary fix, you could use the HW voicing menu: decrease amplitude and compensate with increased brightness for the boomy sounding notes.

Or does the same problem happen with high notes? In that case, you might want to check the volume control knobs of your speakers.
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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostTue Nov 21, 2017 3:31 pm

mdyde wrote:Hello Frits,

As you have it configured currently in Hauptwerk, yes -- provided you're using a single virtual rank (as opposed to a surround sample set that has 'front' and 'rear' virtual ranks both sounding simultaneously, for example), then C and C# within that rank will go to separate pairs of your audio interface driver's channels (1+2, 3+4, 5+6).

Do the notes go to separate speaker pairs if you use St. Anne's?

Had you been trying to use a surround sample set's rank?


I did indeed use the Bavo extended version which is a surround sample but also tried St Anne which gave me the same results. I wonder if it is something in the audio card that needs to be adjusted.

Thanks !

Frits
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mdyde

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Re: Upgrade speakers or Audio interface (or both)

PostWed Nov 22, 2017 5:08 am

Hello Frits,

If it definitely happens with just a single rank drawn on St. Anne's, then yes -- I think you must somehow either have something configured within your audio interface driver's control panel software that's causing it, or have perhaps have some cables connected incorrectly, or conceivably have one or more couplers drawn.

With your settings configured as they are/were in the diagnostic file you sent, and with just a single St. Anne's rank drawn (such as the Open Diapason Large 8 stop), and with no couplers drawn, any given C will go to one of your audio interface driver's pair of channels (1+2, or 3+4, or 5+6), C# to another one of those pairs, and D to another.

(N.B. For any given rank, C in one octave won't necessarily go to the same logical audio output as C in another octave, so have a coupler drawn could affect things.)
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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