NAMM Anaheim, California, January 24, 2013
RME have updated their Premum Line with a range of new products for digital multichannel transmission and conversion.
Being an early adopter and pioneer in MADI technology, RME developers have always been dedicated to making the open protocol compatible, stable, and affordable for their customers. Among the first devices that were released for the widely adopted technology were the ADAT and AES3 (AES/EBU) converters ADI-642, ADI-6432, and ADI-648, as well as the MADI Bridge and MADI Converter, which for over a decade have gained a reputation for being unmatched in terms of feature set and reliability.
NAMM 2013 sees the launch of RME’s new Premium Line digital MADI converters. Five new beautifully designed products: the new MADI Router, the ADAT Router and ADAT Converter, and the AES3 Router and AES3 Converter.
One of the interesting developments on all five products is the new MADI RJ45 connector, which extends the existing two media options, optical cables and coaxial cables, by a third one: standard network cables. Making use of twisted pair Ethernet cables for multichannel audio signals offers several advantages that optical and coaxial cables were lacking: bidirectional audio transmission between two devices over one cable, power supply, and unmatched availability of cables at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional MADI cabling. Depending on the type of cable, cable lengths of up to 100m (330 ft.) can be achieved.
The MADI Router has four groups of three different MADI I/O’s and is used as a patch bay and format converter. Apart from the fully transparent routing of entire MADI streams between its ports, its performance supersedes the popular MADI Bridge by letting users create output signals that combine audio channels from different MADI inputs.
The ADAT Router is based on the design of the ADI-648, providing eight optical ADAT inputs, eight ADAT outputs, and MADI connectors for optical, coaxial, and MADI Twisted Pair connections. All audio channels can be freely routed between MADI and ADAT.
Following in the footsteps of the ADI-642 and ADI-6432, RME’s new AES3 Router will give you the best of both units offering channel routing and multiple conversion capabilities. Apart from optical, coaxial and twisted pair MADI connections, the AES3 Router provides four D-sub 25-pin ports, carrying 32 audio channels both in and out of the device. However, the ports can be configured to be send-only or receive-only, resulting in 64 audio channel outputs or 64 audio channel inputs.
All three routers are equipped with a TFT display for easy operation and status overview, redundant power supplies, and USB ports for preset storage and firmware updates.
The ADAT Converter is an extension to either one of the routers, receiving its power over the MADI Twisted Pair connection from the Router. Therefore, no additional power supply is needed. The ADAT Converter translates the signals of up to eight ADAT inputs to MADI TP, and sends the signals from its MADI input to the eight ADAT outputs.
The new AES3 Converter also acts as an extension to either one of the routers. It can be configured to convert the attached MADI signal to send and receive 32 audio channels, or, if required, either send or receive 64 audio channels.
Shipping and pricing are to be announced.