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In its principal application, the 8824 connects the external world (analog and digital) of your
studio with your computer using the ADAT lightpipe multichannel interface. In this setup you
will also need a suitable computer (Wintel PC or Apple Macintosh) and a suitable interface card.
Suitable cards are made by Alesis, Sonorus, Korg, Mark of the Unicorn (2408 system),
MIDIMAN and others.
There are many reasons for using an external interface device rather than an all-in-one card that
positions converters inside your computer. Some of these reasons are:
·
From an audio signal’s point of view, the inside of your computer is a nasty environment,
both noisy and plagued by RF. Using the 8824 removes the critical steps of A/D and D/A
conversion from this noise-prone box and allows them to take place in an environment
more conducive to high performance, 24-bit conversion.
·
Quite often, connecting the computer’s ground system into your audio ground system
causes hum. The lightpipe interface provides complete isolation between the computer’s
ground system and your audio system; each system’s grounding is totally separate and isolated.
·
There isn’t nearly enough room on the interface card’s mounting bracket to house suitable
connectors. The rear panel of the 8824 has enough space to house a full complement of
the connectors that you already use in your audio system.
For all of these reasons, we think that the 8824 is the best solution for getting analog and digital
signals into your ADAT lightpipe equipped computer.
Your studio may or may not utilize any Alesis ADAT modular digital multitrack (MDM)
machines. If you use ADAT MDM’s, the 8824 may be used to improve the quality of your audio
conversion and dynamic range. However, you may wish to continue using the machine’s internal
A/D converters rather than the 8824, and your decision will most likely depend on which MDM
you use. The 8824 has no dither capability, so using the 8824 instead of the MDM’s internal
converters may cause audible truncation when using 16-bit MDM’s. Losing these bits won’t cause
the end of the world, or damage to anything, and you might even find the trade-off in dynamic
range to be worthwhile. The degree of truncation you experience will depend on the converter
resolution of your specific MDM.
A
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ADA8824 (ADAT)
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