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[Shane Salmon]

Speculation....

If you had gains on a digital snake set extremely low, and the majority of your gain after the snake on the analog desk, your signal to noise ratio from the A/D section could be very bad. For example, if your digital inputs on the snake were averaging -60, and a ton of gain was added on the A&H. The signal would be surprisingly close to the noise floor and then gained up. This would be bad. Get most of your gain from the snake.

That said... How ARE you connecting the S16 to your analog desk? I don't know much about that snake, but I am confused. It seems to be analog in, AES50 digital out.

I have adjusted the gain on the digital snake stage side but that doesn't take away the hiss, whether its -2 or +20. I am connecting the S16 to the board through an ADA 8000.

[Samuel Rees]

The actual audio sound is fine, comes through clear (no static) and the connection is good. I thought there was too much gain too, but even after turning the gain down on the individual channels on the S-16 there was no change. The gain on the board is no more than the usual that is used with the previous set up which has no hiss at all. I'm not sure if I completely understand how to find out the mic pres set in the S-16 (if it is the individual gain that is set on the S-16 it is -2.). The inputs that go into the board go through amps on the stage side and then through our house speakers and monitors.

1 - In a digital snake plus analog board setup, your gains on the analog board would NOT be what they were before. They would be around zero - the digital snake contains your preamp. In digital systems, the lower your signal level at conversion, the lower your signal to noise ratio is. Place all your analog gains at zero, or low, and use the S16 for most of your gain.

Start by setting your analog gains at zero, gain the S16 em up enough to get signal on each channel (you are going to have to set the gain on the s16 like a sound check on each channel). Let us know when this is fully done,

Also, can you describe the sound further?

[John Roberts {JR}]

The actual audio sound is fine, comes through clear (no static) and the connection is good. I thought there was too much gain too, but even after turning the gain down on the individual channels on the S-16 there was no change. The gain on the board is no more than the usual that is used with the previous set up which has no hiss at all. I'm not sure if I completely understand how to find out the mic pres set in the S-16 (if it is the individual gain that is set on the S-16 it is -2.). The inputs that go into the board go through amps on the stage side and then through our house speakers and monitors.

A digital snake is not the same thing as a wire snake.  Microphones put out tiny voltages that wire can pass cleanly, but a digital path needs that signal boosted.

I am too lazy to look up what a S-16 is/does but in general when you run two gain stages in series, you will get the best S/N by putting most of your gain in the first stage. THis is because gain in the second preamp amplifies noise from the first preamp along with signal.

So trim up the gain higher in your first stage (S-16)  and reduce gain a like amount it in your second stage (console).

Does the S-16 have an owners manual? Does it offer any advice for typical applications? Did you RTFM?

JR

 

[Mac Kerr]

The actual audio sound is fine, comes through clear (no static) and the connection is good. I thought there was too much gain too, but even after turning the gain down on the individual channels on the S-16 there was no change. The gain on the board is no more than the usual that is used with the previous set up which has no hiss at all. I'm not sure if I completely understand how to find out the mic pres set in the S-16 (if it is the individual gain that is set on the S-16 it is -2.). The inputs that go into the board go through amps on the stage side and then through our house speakers and monitors.

Turn the input mic pre gain down as far as it goes on your mixer. Turn the gain up on the S-16 till the audio level is right at the console. Listen for hiss again.

Mac

[Tommy Peel]

Hmmm... Wouldn't they need a x32 ass product to accomplish that routing?

I didn't think the ADA8000s had AES50. If not, I don't follow.

I was wondering how this was setup too so I did some research and the S16s are designed to be usable in a standalone application. They have 16(2x8) channels of ADAT output on the rear of each unit. So apparently you could have one S16 on stage sending 16 channels to a second S16 at FOH which would output 8 channels via the onboard XLRs and another 8 via the ADAT+ADA8000 outputs. I'm sure most everyone here has figured this out but I thought I'd post it in case anyone else was still wondering.

[Mac Kerr]

I have adjusted the gain on the digital snake stage side but that doesn't take away the hiss, whether its -2 or +20. I am connecting the S16 to the board through an ADA 8000.

How do you connect to the board through an ADA8000? How do you convert the AES50 signal on CAT5 to ADAT? How many S-16 boxes do you have?

Please post a diagram that shows how you have everything patched, including what is the long run from stage to FOH.

For 16 channels I would run an analog multi.

Mac

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

I was wondering how this was setup too so I did some research and the S16s are designed to be usable in a standalone application. They have 16(2x8) channels of ADAT output on the rear of each unit. So apparently you could have one S16 on stage sending 16 channels to a second S16 at FOH which would output 8 channels via the onboard XLRs and another 8 via the ADAT+ADA8000 outputs. I'm sure most everyone here has figured this out but I thought I'd post it in case anyone else was still wondering.

From the horse's mouth:

"Although the S16 was initially designed for use with our flagship X32 digital console, any mixing board with AES50 networking capability can tap into the S16's powerful feature set. So if you happen to work on an analog mixing board occasionally, you could use two pairs of S16 and ADA8000 to form a high-performance, lightweight 16 x 16 digital snake, all on one CAT5 connection, keeping the preamp remote control functionality."

Seems like a lot of hassle and expense for a kludge which may or may not be a stable connection.

[Jason Lucas]

One of these on stage takes 16 analog inputs:



Which connects to another one at FOH via AES50:



You get 8 analog outputs from the FOH S16.

Then you have an ADA8000 at FOH which gets its 8 inputs from the ADAT outputs on the FOH S16:


Then you get 8 more analog outputs from the ADA8000.

The analog console gets 16 inputs from the 8 analog outputs on the ADA8000 as well as the 8 analog outputs on the S16.

And yes, it is an overly complicated way to do it. If they simply made a version of the S16 with 16 analog outputs you could skip the ADA8000.

[Lee Buckalew]

Greetings,

I am trying to install a Behringer digital snake (S16) to use with an Allen and Heath analog board. I am experiencing a hissing sound from the S16 that I cannot eliminate. At first I thought it may be due to the fact that I am using CAT5 cable that is unshielded but even when I connect the S16 directly to the mixer I still get a hiss. I have tried adjusting the gain on both the mixer and the S16 but to no avail. I have also ruled out that it was the board due to the fact that we are currently using the board with our old snake and there is no hissing. Any suggestions?

I had run into the same issue when I first played with this combination.  I thought that the combination was very noisy.  The noise/hiss issue was actually due to my not understanding the routing in the consoles patching.  I thought I was patching one way when I was really doing something different. 

I can not recall precisely what it was that i did incorrectly but I do know that I sat down with the manual and walked step by step through the patch so that I understood what terminology Behringer was using and what they meant by it rather than going by what I assumed they meant.  After doing this I saw what I had done wrong and, even better, the noise problem was gone.

Lee

[g'bye, Dick Rees]

I had run into the same issue when I first played with this combination.  I thought that the combination was very noisy.  The noise/hiss issue was actually due to my not understanding the routing in the consoles patching.  I thought I was patching one way when I was really doing something different. 

I can not recall precisely what it was that i did incorrectly but I do know that I sat down with the manual and walked step by step through the patch so that I understood what terminology Behringer was using and what they meant by it rather than going by what I assumed they meant.  After doing this I saw what I had done wrong and, even better, the noise problem was gone.

Lee

It seems to me that, in my cursory observation of the X32 threads, Behringer has come out and actually stated that shielded cable is either recommended or required for noise-free connections.

[ProSoundWeb Community]