My new Midas DL32

RexBeckett
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Re: My new Midas DL32

Post by RexBeckett »

KMaxwell wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 2:50 pm I am going to get an EtherCon pass thru chassis connectors so I can plug that into the tester with an RJ45 jumper. I used a Neutrik EtherCon coupler to do that on one end of the cable when testing things so that should work (on the other end) for what I want to do.
With a small modification, you can use a pair of NE8FF etherCON couplers so the tester can check the shell-to-shell continuity.

See: viewtopic.php?p=836#p836
RexBeckett
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Re: My new Midas DL32

Post by RexBeckett »

KMaxwell wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 2:50 pm I don’t like the black ones because I tested someone’s premade EtherCon cable with black shells (I don’t think they were Neutrik versions) and I didn’t get continuity till I disassembled them and scraped off the black coating on the inside of the shell.
Neutrik uses conductive black chromium plating on their -B shells. Budget versions are probably just dippped in black paint. :o

I've been using black Neutrik shells on most of my analogue cables for many years with no issues. Originally this was because I didn't like the way a silver XLR looked on stage when connecting a black cable to a black mic on a black stand. I also use them for AES50. Partly because they are less obvious on the back of a DP48 but mostly just 'cos I like them.
KMaxwell
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Re: My new Midas DL32

Post by KMaxwell »

My tests with SMAART have been running well. With the WING and the DL32 connected using the AES50a ports the propagation delay using DL32 inputs thru the WING and back out to the DL32 is 1.47ms. From the WING local input to WING local output the Propagation delay is 1.29ms. This is without any effects in line with the signal. And the transfer function is flat from input to output including the phase.

Does anyone know if the Cat cable (150’ of shielded Cat6a with stranded conductors that are shielded in pairs) for some reason isn’t up to specs what would happen? Since I have solid lock (AES Sync light solid green) with the 150ft hooked up and the slack coiled up on the floor between the WING and the DL32 does that mean I am good to go or is the real stress when I have most of the inputs and outputs with signal passing? I am just wondering what to expect. I also have a 100ft EtherCon (Cat5e shielded solid conductors) cable as backup if needed.
RexBeckett
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Re: My new Midas DL32

Post by RexBeckett »

KMaxwell wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 4:02 am Does anyone know if the Cat cable (150’ of shielded Cat6a with stranded conductors that are shielded in pairs) for some reason isn’t up to specs what would happen? Since I have solid lock (AES Sync light solid green) with the 150ft hooked up and the slack coiled up on the floor between the WING and the DL32 does that mean I am good to go or is the real stress when I have most of the inputs and outputs with signal passing?
AES50 is a frame-based transport scheme so I would expect it to pass a 100MBPS bit-stream regardless of how many channels are active. If the sync is solid, I would test with audio passing both ways (even a single channel) to check for drop-outs. Other than that, it should be good to go.
KMaxwell
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Re: My new Midas DL32

Post by KMaxwell »

RexBeckett wrote: Mon Jul 12, 2021 2:34 pm
KMaxwell wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 4:02 am Does anyone know if the Cat cable (150’ of shielded Cat6a with stranded conductors that are shielded in pairs) for some reason isn’t up to specs what would happen? Since I have solid lock (AES Sync light solid green) with the 150ft hooked up and the slack coiled up on the floor between the WING and the DL32 does that mean I am good to go or is the real stress when I have most of the inputs and outputs with signal passing?
AES50 is a frame-based transport scheme so I would expect it to pass a 100MBPS bit-stream regardless of how many channels are active. If the sync is solid, I would test with audio passing both ways (even a single channel) to check for drop-outs. Other than that, it should be good to go.
Thank you. I should be good to go since I did the test both ways when doing the SMAART testing on it.
KMaxwell
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Re: My new Midas DL32

Post by KMaxwell »

The first show with this setup using the Cat6a cable was supposed to be last Sunday. We didn’t get the word that the show was cancelled until we were almost completely setup. The band chickened out. The weather forecast wasn’t great but where we were was fine. We are under the impression that the leader of the band was coming from an hour or 2 north of us and it was raining rather hard up there. So when we got the word it was cancelled we decided that we were so close to getting everything working that we kept going so we could test and play a little bit with the new setup. Everything worked, I just needed to get a few things on the WING set a little bit differently. The system is dual mono and I had a little bit of an issue with the routing. I got it figured out and we were fine. I am thinking of changing things a little bit and use the stereo outs of the WING.

This was basically just a playback test since we didn’t have a band there. Everything worked and sounded fine. We basically recalled previous settings in the DBX4800 Drive Rack for the mains and I had imported an M32 scene into the WING using Pauls XM2WING Converter. I also had manually copied some of the things that didn’t import like the monitor EQs. This is a summer concert series in one place for 2 different entities (promoters) one that does them on Sunday late afternoon and a different one that promotes them on Wednesday nights. So we have a lot of shows saved in the M32.

Our next show was scheduled for last Wednesday night. It was postponed from Wednesday night to Thursday night, due to the treat of rain even though it didn’t rain at all Wednesday afternoon or evening. The forecast radar had is raining pretty hard right over the location at the time of the show. It was wrong. How many jobs can you have and keep and be as wrong as often a weather forecaster has a tendency to be. I just like to tease them.

This was the first time with a full band. I used the WING with the DL32 stage box and used the new 150’ Cat6a stranded conductor shielded EtherCon cable. I only ran it out 100’ because I also had a backup 100’ Cat5e solid conductor shielded EtherCon cable strung out also as an emergency backup. Everything worked just fine with the Cat6a cable.

I had the DBX4800 next to me at FOH and channels 1&2 on that being feed from the AES/EBU outs on the WING (like we do when using the M32) and the channels 3&4 being feed from the analog outputs. We were trying to take this change over one step at a time. Well not quite one step at a time because if I was doing that I would have used one of the M32 mixers with the DL32 instead of the WING but I was really anxious to use the WING for a real show. We had an analog return snake for the FOH speakers and the monitors were run thru the returns on the DL32. Everything worked just fine. The Cat6a is rugged and it laid out very flat in the grass. We also use a few Bumblebee cable protectors were we have to cross a walkway. To FOH I had 4 cables, the Cat6a the backup Cat5e the power (with powerCON connectors and a small breakout box at FOH) and the analog return snake.

Next I want to move the DXB4800 to the stage and run a standard Cat5e cable for control. This is so I have access to it for setup and so I can see what the limiters are doing if anything during the show. And I can also use the 2 AES/EBU outputs on the DL32 to feed the DBX4800. I now need to find 150’ of standard Cat cable that is rugged enough and will lay flat in the grass for this control cable. I could get another 150’ of the Cat6a cable that I have but that is more then I want to spend for this control cable. I could have used an EtherCon coupler at both ends of the EtherCon Cat5e so I can adapt it to standard RJ45 connectors and used that for control cable but I would prefer to use one cable end to end instead of that setup. I guess my other choice is to see if I can control the DBX4800 wirelessly with a tablet or wireless from my computer. But a quick look on their website it looks like the tablet control is only for Apple products.

Everyone was very happy. The promoter gave me a big smile and a thumbs up a couple of time when she passed by FOH. There was a sound guy there that I know and was very surprised to see him there and he gave me a thumbs up also. Everyone was happy and absolutely no complaints. So business as usual.

This was the first time I actually used the WING for a show even though I have had it in my position since just before the pandemic hit. So I have had a lot of time on it sitting next to me for about 17 months. I really like the capabilities of the WING but I can see that for anyone but an experienced sound person it is a lot to take in.

The only thing I would have changed for this group (Gloria Estefan tribute band) is I would have had a separate DCA for the percussion so I didn’t have to keep changing layers to push the percussion mics for the solos. I had the drums and the percussion on one layer and one DCA for all of the drums. But I am fast enough on the WING that it wasn’t an issue, I just think having a dedicated DCA for the percussion would have been better.

So this is the update of my situation and the DL32 stage box.

Please forgive any grammar or spelling errors.
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pvannatto
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Re: My new Midas DL32

Post by pvannatto »

@KMaxwell , great report and glad to hear that the Wing and cables worked well. I have a jamboree coming up in a couple of weeks and I'm tempted to use the Wing, even though I've been using my X32 Rack for it for years.
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thunfisch
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Re: My new Midas DL32

Post by thunfisch »

GaryH wrote: Fri Jun 25, 2021 3:30 am At one point (1.7) you could tell by the fan being able to be turned off via the front panel or not, as that function was newly added. Hold the DL32 MUTE button during power-on to disable the fan.
That is the very first time I've heard of this feature. Amazing. Will have to try that when I have my DL32 at home the next time. Do you know if the DL32 will remember that setting, or do you have to do that on every startup?
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GaryH
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Re: My new Midas DL32

Post by GaryH »

@thunfisch I can check, I don't recall if it is remembered or not, I feel like it's not though.

edit: I couldn't tell! Its in a rack so I can't tell (easily) when it was on or off without much more digging to get at it. Still suspect it would be per start up as having it off (especially inside a confined space) might cause bigger issues. I did try it when it was out of that rack way back when to see if it worked, and it did...but never looked to see if it remained that way afterwards.
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Heavy90
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Re: My new Midas DL32

Post by Heavy90 »

GaryH wrote: Fri Jun 25, 2021 3:30 am Hold the DL32 MUTE button during power-on to disable the fan
Hey, i tried that like it also stands in the firmware release notes. The fan stoped. silly question. How can i enable the Fan again? Just Power Cycle dont do it. And trying the Mute Button on powercycle dont work aswell. Any ideas?
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