Two H-8000 FW units in one PC

[ThreeFingersOfLove]

Hello,

I am trying to get rid of my three RME units and get top notch converters. Since I am very satisfied with the converters in the H-8000 FW I was wondering if there's a way to have two of them working together via Firewire. In Cubase, will the driver be able to talk to both units simultaneously? Ideally I would like to have 24 channels at 96 KHz.

Regards,

Yannis

[nickrose]

You should be able to use multiple H8000FW's with a PC, but I don't think we've tested it.

If you're seriously interested, let me know and I'll give it a try.

[ThreeFingersOfLove]

Please do, when you find some time. Will I need two Firewire inputs in my computer or can I use one of the Firewire inputs in a unit as a "thru" for the other? In that case will the FW 400 suffice? I know there are bandwidth issues…

[nickrose]

I'll send the word to the test department and get back to you when I have some answers.

[ThreeFingersOfLove]

Bump.

[rmaxwell]

We are going to do some testing here.  We will keep you posted.

[ThreeFingersOfLove]

Any news on this? Instead of getting a Prism Orpheus, I'd be happy to get another H-8000FW!

[nickrose]

Hi Yannis

I've done some testing with 2 H8000FW and everything seems to be as it should. I can't claim to have covered every possible arrangement, but it looks good.

A few caveats:

1) You should use WordClock to lock the 2 units, otherwise it will use FireWire sync, which is not the first choice.

2) Not all DAW applications can handle simultaneous channels from multiple FW units – we can't help much with this.

3) Multiple units implies many channels – make sure your computer can handle it. Don't use FireWire drives as well.

[nickrose]

ThreeFingersOfLove:

Will I need two Firewire inputs in my computer or can I use one of the Firewire inputs in a unit as a "thru" for the other? In that case will the FW 400 suffice? I know there are bandwidth issues…

You can daisy-chain the FireWire connections as long as you don't use the FW as a power supply for "downstream" equipment – your computer only need one FW connector.

Not sure what the bandwidth limit is – FW400 is bus limited at 49mB/s (about 250 48kHz channels), but the computer hardware/software will most likely be the limiting factor. Again, the best computer you can find would be good.

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