Hello fellow djs,
I am looking for an audio interface that can get 8 or 10 audio channels via usb and change it to 4 coax outputs. Does anyone have any recommendations?
Don’t think there is; most are TOSlink or ADAT and even then 4 outputs is a challenge.
You might need to go the MADI route on this one with more than one interface as well.
I was thinking of AES or Dante or something similar. ADAT - I will check what’s available…
RME or Motu. Those have several options.
I remember searching far and wide for this for use with the PPD9000 and DJM800, and never could find one.
So far I found RME Digiface USB, but that is all optical… These need an conversion to RCA SPDIF… I keep on looking…
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Yikes. 600 bucks. In my hypothetical application I wanted it for way back, might as well just buy another mixer with USB already.
In some applications money is not an issue.
It’s too bad the interface capabilities on the Prime players actually aren’t active. You’d have two spare SPDIF outs per player.
You’d think someone like Behringer could make something like this for cheap. USB to 4 coax SPDIF outputs.
By the way, realtime optical to coax transcoders can be had for like 10-20 bucks a pop.
But most digital dj mixers inputs are only stereo, and can’t be routed as we like, so other options need to be implemented…
I have one of those, and it’s a great interface.
For what (I think) you’re doing, you might need to get some old M-Audio/Midiman CO2 or CO3 boxes to convert from RCA to SPDIF (they also convert the opposite direction too).
Closest thing I can think of is the Z-Systems Z-8.8a, but that takes an ADAT stream (8 channels of mono audio) and converts it to 4x coax digital outputs (and vice versa). If you had an interface with ADAT I/O, a Z-8.8a might work.
What exactly are you trying to do?
I want to use 4 digital inputs on a mixer with a usb audio interface. Old sound cards that are not compatible with M1/M2 apple silicon are not an option.
That Digiface USB is probably your best bet then, coupled with 4x CO2 boxes.
Getting a Z-Systems Z-8.8a is tricky, as they don’t come up for sale very often, and they’re not cheap when they do pop up. That frees up 3x ADAT’s though, so you get the full 32 channels of inout and output then.
With digiface You need to still convert optical to electric. This can introduce delays. Latency could be a problem… But I continue testing and searching…
The latency of optical to electrical conversion is going going to be in the order of microseconds. You wouldn’t hear it or notice it unless you were using lab equipment to measure it.
If any solutions exist (or existed), you’re probably looking at spending thousands of dollars on a pretty high end solution from RME, which is likely the only company supporting legacy equipment with modern drivers.
Correct. Not significantly more than the AK4103A transmitter chips on the Prime players, which oddly enough actually support 192khz… I had no idea that was a thing over SPDIF.
Edit: Actually, the chip has a ‘Transparent Mode’ for simple digital audio signal routing, which might be slightly faster than transcoding, but transcoding is still very fast… certainly as fast or faster than any SPDIF to USB.
So you want 4 digital inputs on a digital DJ mixer with USB into a computer (easy enough), and a USB from the computer back to 4 digital outputs?
Why not just use the USB connection from the computer to the mixer? Maybe I missed that as the obvious answer? I’m guessing it’s not that simple though.
I have no idea what he’s doing at this point, but initially I thought he was misspeaking, hence me asking for clarification.
Nope, no, no. I have a digital mixer. It’s sound crad via usb is not going to work ever on M1 macbook. But that mixer has great quality DACs that I would like to use. So I am looking for a external usb audio interfsce, that will give me 4 digital out for this mixer