Operation Manual

4BOperational Overview
5.1.1 Physical Inputs
Starting from the digital inputs in the upper right
portion of Figure 4, each AES-3 input signal is
routed through a transformer for isolation before
arriving at an AES-3 receiver. The receiver
extracts a word clock, using a low jitter phase-
locked loop, and signal data that is passed to the
Input Bus of digital mixer.
In the case of the SRC version of the AES16, the
signals on digital inputs 5 – 8 then pass through a
high-performance sample rate converter before
merging with the Input Bus. This sample rate
converter can be enabled or disabled under user
control in the Lynx Mixer.
The LStream header on the AES16 is an
expansion port that provides an additional 16
inputs from a Lynx LStream device, such as the
LS-ADAT that offers 16 channels of ADAT
lightpipe. The signals from the LStream header
are routed through the LStream receiver, which
feeds the Input Bus.
5.1.2 Digital Mixer Inputs
The digital mixer has 16 input blocks that
receive data from the Input Bus and drive the 16
channels of the record bus. Each of these blocks
has an input selector that allows selection of any
signal on the Input Bus. This selector allows
flexible patching of any AES16 physical input
signal to any of the 16 Record Bus channels.
After the selector, the signal passes through a
mute switch and then through the dither block,
which offers three popular dither algorithms and
bit-depth control. The output of the dither block
is measured for peak level meters and feeds one
of the Record Bus channels.
Software control of the digital mixer’s input
blocks is provided in the Record/Play window of
the Lynx Mixer application. The input selector
corresponds to the Input Source select buttons
(above the faders for each record channel). Mute
and dither controls are also provided for each
channel on this window.
5.1.3 Record Bus and Devices
The 16 channels of the Record Bus are derived
from the outputs of the mixer input blocks.
These signals are routed to the host computer via
the PCI bus to the AES16 driver and also feed
the output section of the digital mixer to provide
zero latency record monitoring.
The AES driver installed on the host computer
assigns the 16 channels from the Record Bus to
eight stereo record devices as follows:
¾ Record Bus Channel 1 feeds the left channel
of Record Device 1
¾ Record Bus Channel 2 feeds the right
channel Record Device 1
¾ Record Bus Channel 3 feeds the left channel
Record Device 2
¾ (etc)
¾ (etc)
¾ Record Bus Channel 16 feeds the right
channel Record Device 8
5.1.4 Play Bus and Devices
The Play Bus is derived from the 16 channels
sent to the AES16 play devices from host
applications. In other words, when an application
is used to playback a file, the data from the file is
sent to an AES16 play device. The AES16 driver
routes this data to the Play Bus, which feeds the
output section of the digital mixer. Similar to the
Record Bus, the 16 channels of the Play Bus
correspond to the AES16’s eight play devices are
follows:
¾ Left channel of Play Device 1 feeds Play
Bus Channel 1
¾ Right channel of Play Device 1 feeds Play
Bus Channel 2
¾ Left channel of Play Device 2 feeds Play
Bus Channel 3
¾ (etc)
¾ (etc)
¾ Right channel of Play Device 8 feeds Play
Bus Channel 16
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