Harmony Central®: Firmware Update for RME's ADI-648 MADI/ADAT Converter Released

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Firmware Update for RME's ADI-648 MADI/ADAT Converter Released

Front Panel
(Click for a close-up)

Rear Panel
(Click for a close-up)

July 4, 2003
A free firmware update is now available for RME's ADI-648 MADI/ADAT converter. The new firmware version 1.5 adds several significant new features including:

SteadyClock, RME's new clock technology, which will be used in all upcoming products. So far the clock section consisted of an analog PLL for external synchronization and several quartz oscillators for internal synchronization. SteadyClock requires only one quartz. Latest circuit designs like hi-speed digital synthesizer, digital PLL, 200 MHz sample rate and analog filtering allow RME to realize a completely newly developed clock technology, right within the FPGA at lower costs. SteadyClock offers a highly efficient jitter reduction. An input jitter of 50 ns will be reduced to 3 ns. Additionally, when the external clock source (ADI-648: word clock, MADI or ADAT) fails, the last valid frequency is held and operation continues. Despite these two remarkable features, SteadyClock reacts fast compared to other techniques. It locks in fractions of a second to the input signal, follows even extreme varipitch changes with phase accuracy, and locks directly within a range of 25 kHz up to 192 kHz (ADI-648 up to 100 kHz).

Complete MIDI remote control. The ADI-648 still converts MIDI to MADI and vice versa. Firmware version 1.5 now additionally allows to access the device directly, performing all settings available on the front panel via MIDI. A status request of the current settings can also be done. A tiny Windows program can be downloaded for free from the RME website, giving complete access to the ADI-648 with a simple mouse click, via any MIDI port present in the system. MIDI additionally allows for an indication of the incoming MADI status (56/64-channel mode, 48/96 kHz Frame). The upcoming HDSP MADI PCI card will allow you to control the ADI-648 via MADI directly from a computer.

Additional mute state. An additional mute function has been added to the routing matrix of the ADI-648. With this, the 8-channel based outputs of the matrix can not only be connected to any MADI or ADAT 8-channel input group, but also being muted per group.

Bug fix sync detection MADI. In certain cases a MADI loopback operation caused the sync detection of the MADI input to fail.

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The update consists of a new EPROM, which can be exchanged without soldering.
For more information, visit their web site at www.rme-audio.com.