[LAU] Ardour: exporting woes

[Len Ovens]

On Thu, 24 Mar 2016, jonetsu at teksavvy.com wrote:

> On Thu, 24 Mar 2016 08:06:30 -0700 (PDT)
> Len Ovens <len at ovenwerks.net> wrote:
>
>> Looking at the 1010LT manual, I see that the jumpers are only for the
>> two XLR connectors to set them Mic (-50ish) or line (+4). The manual
>> then say that the i/o level can be set in the control panel
>> (windows/OSx) to line, consumer or -10... that is +4, -4 or -10. I
>> see that mudita24 does not have these settings and so would assume
>> 0db = +4db out... which is definately too much for anything that
>> likes to connect to the RCA jacks the LT comes with. You should
>> probably be running your DAC levels at -12 or -14 if you are using
>> -10 amplification for monitoring.
>
> Thanks for the comment.  This aspect is very interesting.  The only
> Pro/Consumer settings are seemingly for S/PDIF configuration.
>
> The monitor setting in Ardour is at 0.0dB.  This way I figured what is
> heard is what the master bus fader is at, and not adding any other
> amplitude modification.  Since it is likely that the DAC is set at
> +4dB, wouldn't this mean that a 1010LT fader compensation of -4dB would
> be sufficient to bring the default out at 0dB ?

:)  It depends on what your audio equipment after the 1010LT is looking 
for. Most anything with RCA inputs thinks that -10db actual level is it's 
version of 0db. Most profesional equipment (balanced inputs) thinks of 
+4db as it's 0db (often having headroom up to around +30db). So if you are 
going rca out to rca in, you should assume it is "looking for" -10db which 
means setting your DAC level to -14db.

The consumer/pro in s/pdif is not levels, but dictates what the extra 
s/pdif information it sends looks like. Consumer is s/pdif and "pro" is 
AES3.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net