d8b Forum

Here is a thought, i am wondering if the digital converters are the same in both d8b and hdr.
i have just got another HDR with 3x Aio8 Analogue cards in and out ,( ins not through the D8B)
my other hdr has opt8 light pipe in and out, ( in and out through the D8Bs opt8 cards)
so my question is ....
when i put say a vocal into the hdr through the analogue d sub in when it gets converted to digi in the hdr
is it the same conversion rate and quality as when i put the same vocal through my D8B via light pipe in to the other hdr
( with opt 8 cards) ?
As this way the sig gets converted in the D8b before it get the the opt8 Hdr

Reason for my question is when i record vocal to the Aio8 analogue hdr i can then use any pre amp i wanted in this case a Amek 9098 ( i know i can through the d8b as well) but seems to sound better going into AIO8 card, is this because the sig is going through a shorter route, ie not through the desk ?
not alot in it to be fair but i think i can hear it, to me it sounds more open going in to the AIO card.

Has anyone done any comparisons ?

I would think the d8b and HDR have very close, if not the same converters. I run a sort of similar set up though I am doing my conversion with an Apogee AD8000 and then hitting the HDR with TDIF through DIO.8 cards, bypassing the console.

hi crash,
was using the AD8000 better than going through the d8b ?

funk wrote:hi crash,
was using the AD8000 better than going through the d8b ?

I don't know that "better" is the right way to describe it but Apogee has a sound that is unlike the d8b. The AD8000 can be had so cheap these days and it is pretty feature laden, so why not. I am pretty sure if I still used the d8b's internal conversion, or the HDR's for that matter, I would be just fine. I have yet to listen to a finished product and thought to myself..."Listen to that conversion!" My limitations are more prevelant than that of any conversion choices I make, at least that is what I figure.

Hey Crash & Funk;

As I understand things, looking at the schematics, any conversion that takes place on any I/O card, the signal gets converted to the same digital format for internal routing (travelling) within the d8B and HDR. So, I would think any difference between the HDR and the d8b would be in how good the converters , be they A/D or D/D, between the various I/O cards.

Now if we are looking at the A/D converters inside the d8b, through the Mic/Line pre's, there are some differences, at cct design level, between the I/O cards and the A/D converters of the d8b. Not sure that the difference is that much though.

I have used outboard pre-amps into AIO of my HDR and used the Analog outs of those card to feed into both tape returns of my d8b (using AI0 cards), and into the Line inputs of the d8b for monitoring. Not sure if I could say that one way sounds better than the other. As Crash points out.

The difference would be in how good are the A/D and D/A Converters individually. We do know that there should be better A/D converters designed after the d8b became obsolete so it stands to reason that there will be a different sound.

But either way, you still need to go through Mackie A/D I/O's to get it into the HDR or the d8b for that matter.

What am I saying? I don't know. I just thought I talk through the process and see what you think.

Cheers
Bruce

Personally, I think the A/D D/A are the same on each device. A high quality Word Clock makes a considerable difference of a positive nature. I have a Rosendahl Nanosyncs but others recommend different W/Cs and I don't doubt their suggestions. The main bone of contention I have is with the mic/line input circuit on the first 12 channels of the d8b. Bit dodgy.

Peter

Crash wrote:

funk wrote:hi crash,
was using the AD8000 better than going through the d8b ?

I don't know that "better" is the right way to describe it but Apogee has a sound that is unlike the d8b. The AD8000 can be had so cheap these days and it is pretty feature laden, so why not. I am pretty sure if I still used the d8b's internal conversion, or the HDR's for that matter, I would be just fine. I have yet to listen to a finished product and thought to myself..."Listen to that conversion!" My limitations are more prevelant than that of any conversion choices I make, at least that is what I figure.

Yes probably the wrong word, as all sound is subjective, and I do like the sound of the ins on the d8b, it has made the tracks I have done to date sound what I consider good and clear,
I think then it's just down to having sound options and what best fits,

Cheers Bruce I suppose any quality pre going into the AIO card of the HDR bypassing the d8b is going to sound different.
I'm not very tec savvy on this just learning from you guys, I was thinking that if going through the d8b via opt to the HDR the sig would be converted in the d8b for any processing the the same digi sig then sent to the opt card changed again, then to the opt in of the HDR processed again ( or just passed on the same ?) then changed again in the HDR ..... against going into the AIo card bypassing the d8b would only be converted once in the HDR,... But thinking about it it's the input cards that do the conversion in to the HDR ? Not the HDR ? And once changed to digi it should stay the same anyway no matter how many times its bounced through the system ? So there is no bit rate difference through the system?
Sorry if it all sounds I bit obvious that's why they call us noobs

Hi peter, a bit dodgy in what way? Do you mean by today's standard ? Yes i don't think the pre and eq is going
to compare to today's standards, hence me trying another way of getting the sig in via my 9098, but still usable and do a job for the most part, bless its little cotton socks a lot of effort for joe blogs to say " I can't hear the difference" dam philistines.
A better word clock ? I have motu should I try that as a master?

I was trying to research this a bit yesterday and I remember having the discussion before about the conversion happening on the card. I just couldn't remember and I couldn't find my previous conversation about it.

The mic/line inputs are OK, they don't suck but they won't blow your skirt up either. I get where Peter is on this one.

As for wordclocks, there is a great paper written by Dan Lavry where he claims that if given the choice, you should always use the converter clock as your master. I used to use a Lucid and after reading that went with the clock in the AD8000. Once again, my limitations are more prevelant than where my clock source derives from to make a dent in sound quality.

hi crash, just been trying to get some info on lavry found the site but the forum site is down at the moment.
when you say "use the converter clock as your master" not sure what you mean here ?
do you mean in that the d8b is the converter of the analogue in signal to digi so use that clock as master to the system ?

just been reading this, more to it than i thought....
https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun10/ ... clocks.htm

The artical is 6 years old now, but this caught my eye...
"
Overall, it should be clear from these tests that employing an external master clock cannot and will not improve the sound quality of a digital audio system. It might change it, and subjectively that change might be preferred, but it won't change things for the better in any technical sense. A‑D conversion performance will not improve: the best that can be hoped for is that the A‑D conversion won't become significantly degraded. In most cases, the technical performance will actually become worse, albeit only marginally so."

Nothing will make you question your sanity like doing some master clock research.

The Dan Lavry paper basically said that if your converters can be the clock master (has a clock out), then the entire rig should be clocked to it. I think in the whole scheme of things, we are sawing BB's to some extent. I wish I could find the actual written sentence in one of the many white papers put there but I can't seem to locate it. Some people seem to think they can hear "something" when clocking externally, others, not so much.

Personally, I think money is better spent on converters and other things that will make more of an impact than clocking.

Here is an interesting thread on GS, it'll make your head hurt but it might be beneficial to you.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-c ... etter.html