Re: Help putting playback system together, please.
Thanks, Steve.
The "powers that be" do not have a real appreciation for sound. They seem to be happy with stereo playback accompanying video. It's me who thinks it's silly that we don't take advantage of the decent install we have now. My godfather worked for Sound Associates back in the 70's and has taught me a lot about the craft. It's kinda sad that a 17 yo hs student knows more about sound than anyone else in the company. They only really started paying attention to sound after I joined and we started getting feedback from people as to how much the sound has improved...
Maybe it's a wake-up call to reality for me. The professional equipment is way over-kill for what we need to do. I find it kinda crazy that it costs so much more to do what a $300 computer can do. I can currently decode and down-mix the audio stream. The current D/As are fine for our purpose but they're inside a box, surrounded by electronic noise. If Creative made an external, USB sound card with analog 7.1 outs, I could probably make it work just fine. It's not clear if other manufacturers of external cards have the same ability to decode and down-mix... I downloaded the manual for Denon's DN-500AV. Maybe I'm just stupid. But I can't find anything explicit on it's ability to dynamically down-mix multiple channels to feed a 3.1 theater system.
I originally tried to spec a system for all playback using an AES50 interface to the Pro1. That won't work though. Apparently, current drivers won't up-sample playback and I can't send 16/44.1 audio to the interface as the Pro Series only clocks at 24/96?
This seems to be much harder and more expensive than it needs to be. I guess the manufacturers do this on purpose... Maybe a lesson learned.
~Sean
