Hi Trey:

I agree with Alex about this -- AES is the "grown up" option and it's what's there on the 
professional-grade cards anyway. Theoretically, if you are in close-range with your digital change, 
SPDIF is just fine as a transmission system, but AES is balanced and more flexible because it can be 
used over greater distances. Lynx has a great reputation, it's how I'd roll if I had to switch my 
hardware.

But, I _really_ agree with Alex about the Plan B to give your IT people. Tell them to spend their 
time and money buying you backups of everything before they can't get it, and otherwise leave you 
the you-know-what alone! I still run XP in my studio and don't plan to give it up anytime soon. I 
asked previously on this list if anyone could cite a compelling reason to upgrade from Soundforge 9 
to 10 and no one responded, so I assume there is none except that 10 will run on Windows 7 without 
an emulator (I think).

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alex Tomlin" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2012 3:29 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] connections question


> Hi,
> Can you tell the IT people to go away?  You already have a
> good working system and it's my opinion that you really
> don't need to upgrade your kit.
>
> If they need to spend some budget on IT wares then buy a
> couple of spares of your current PC to keep it ticking over
> until you have finished digitising.  Some new harddirves,
> RAM and sparkly keyboard and mouse could make everyone
> happy.
>
> If you really, really have to go with the upgrade then an
> AES card is always the grown up option.  An option being
> the Lynx AES16 which is very powerful, I've not used one
> but they know about audio and does have Win7 drivers:
> http://www.lynxstudio.com/product_detail.asp?i=13
>
> Good luck,
> alex.
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, 5 Jun 2012 11:23:59 -0400
> Trey Bunn <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Hi everyone, I'm looking for some pointers on the
>> differences between
>> optical, S/PDIF, and AES connections.
>>
>> We're upgrading the PCs in our audio studio.  Currently,
>> each
>> workstation has analog equipment plugged into an Apogee
>> Rosetta 200
>> A/D converter, which then connects to the PC via
>> FireWire.  The set-up
>> has worked well for us over the years, but it's outdated,
>> and our IT
>> people insist that we upgrade to newer machines running
>> Windows 7
>> (which also means upgrading Sound Forge).
>>
>> Apogee is no longer supporting their X-FireWire option,
>> but according
>> to their tech support, we can continue to use the Rosetta
>> 200s if we
>> ditch the FireWire route and instead connect via optical,
>> S/PDIF, or
>> AES.  The Rosetta has each of these connections, and
>> presumably, we'd
>> need to get our new PCs outfitted with at least one of
>> the same.
>>
>> Anyone have advice on which of these three is the best to
>> go with?
>> This is for straight, no-frills analog to digital
>> conversion for
>> preservation of old recordings, not anything for fancy
>> production.
>> Just plain, as-close-to-the-original-as-possible
>> transfers.
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> ---------
>> Trey Bunn
>> Audiovisual Conservator
>> Emory University Libraries
>> Preservation Office
>> Atlanta, GA
>> 404-727-4894
>
>
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