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[Russell Ault]

One other subtle advantage of digital interconnects is that most are designed to fail to silent. Something kills the console with the amps still on? Analogue gives you a boom (and a reputation), digital just stops passing audio.

-Russ

[Phillip Ivan Pietruschka]

One other subtle advantage of digital interconnects is that most are designed to fail to silent. Something kills the console with the amps still on? Analogue gives you a boom (and a reputation), digital just stops passing audio.

-Russ

Something else I appreciate with digital interconnects is the ease of maintaining headroom. To properly calibrate an analog signal path you have to pay attention to the clip point on each device in the path; in digital it’s all just 0dBFS and you can move on to the next part of the job.

[Justice C. Bigler]

Something else I appreciate with digital interconnects is the ease of maintaining headroom. To properly calibrate an analog signal path you have to pay attention to the clip point on each device in the path; in digital it’s all just 0dBFS and you can move on to the next part of the job.

Ehhh...sort of.


But if your signal chain is anywhere close to 0dBFS, you're already to hot to begin with.

[Jeff Lelko]

Thanks for all the input so far - the consensus definitely seems to say AES is worth a try.  I’m curious about the latency comments though.  My (uneducated) thought is that AES would be no worse if not better than analog in terms of latency due to the many A-D and D-A conversions taking place when patching together via analog.  In a 100% analog system I’d agree, but since each component of my system is digital until the amplifier, wouldn’t staying digital only help with any latency issues?  Thanks again!

[Tim McCulloch]

Thanks for all the input so far - the consensus definitely seems to say AES is worth a try.  I’m curious about the latency comments though.  My (uneducated) thought is that AES would be no worse if not better than analog in terms of latency due to the many A-D and D-A conversions taking place when patching together via analog.  In a 100% analog system I’d agree, but since each component of my system is digital until the amplifier, wouldn’t staying digital only help with any latency issues?  Thanks again!

Some devices have more AES3 latency because they use embedded *sample rate conversion* to match the internal processing clock rate.  In the original Crown I-Tech the input-to-output latency for AES as almost double the time for an analog input.  Not every device behaves this way but you'll need to look at the numbers just as you would for multiple AD/DA conversions in any time sensitive application.

[Phillip Ivan Pietruschka]

Ehhh...sort of.


But if your signal chain is anywhere close to 0dBFS, you're already to hot to begin with.

Depends what your application is. I’ve got a live webstream going out right now; if it’s peaks weren’t fairly close to 0dBFS there is no way it would be loud enough.

[Jeff Lelko]

Some devices have more AES3 latency because they use embedded *sample rate conversion* to match the internal processing clock rate.  In the original Crown I-Tech the input-to-output latency for AES as almost double the time for an analog input.  Not every device behaves this way but you'll need to look at the numbers just as you would for multiple AD/DA conversions in any time sensitive application.

Thanks for the clarification Tim.  Definitely something interesting that I didn’t think of.  I’ll have to run an experiment to see where my gear ends up latency-wise when running AES versus analog.  Thanks again!

[Tim McCulloch]

Thanks for the clarification Tim.  Definitely something interesting that I didn’t think of.  I’ll have to run an experiment to see where my gear ends up latency-wise when running AES versus analog.  Thanks again!

Hi Jeff-

A 100% analog rig will be almost the speed of light (for our purposes).  Add *anything* digital to the signal path and the clock starts running.  If none of your digital devices need SRC to work the digital through put is about as minimal as it can get but still takes time.

Using AES 3 means you don't go through multiple AD/DA conversions which will eventually degrade the audio and take more time.  You'll preserve signal quality and hopefully have less time penalty.

[Jeff Lelko]

Thanks again Tim.  I agree that a 100% analog system would function with the least amount of latency.  Since all the devices in my signal chain prior to the amps are digital, I’m just surprised that staying digital could potentially induce more latency than going through all the AD/DA conversions.  I can see where the added delays can factor in though.  I guess there’s only one way to find out for sure!

[Tim McCulloch]

Thanks again Tim.  I agree that a 100% analog system would function with the least amount of latency.  Since all the devices in my signal chain prior to the amps are digital, I’m just surprised that staying digital could potentially induce more latency than going through all the AD/DA conversions.  I can see where the added delays can factor in though.  I guess there’s only one way to find out for sure!

In an all digital system without SRC, the number will be lower than using the analog inputs of the digital devices.  The point I'm making is that every digital device adds *some* latency, end to end, and using the analog inputs will create more latency and eventual signal degradation from multiple AD/DA conversions.

[ProSoundWeb Community]