finally a true new high end mixer from pioneer ("the Xone killer") DJM V-10

[SWS Productions]

Yea true, that is fair.. ground loops can be an issue, and given the choice, toslink would be one less ground to worry about.

But that said, I've not had a grounding problem in my system in years.. everything is running off one power distro, everything is balanced connections except for the decks to the mixer which are S/PDIF. I do have a couple of ART DTI's I keep around just in case of problem (for analog isolation, not digital)

What I've been thinking for decades is that the audio industry should come up with a standard for AES/EBU and S/PDIF over ethernet layer 1.. that is, using the electrical standards for ethernet but not the protocols.. because the hardware is cheap and plentiful and it's galvanically isolated. Much better than these old connectors.

But in this day and age.. might as well go all the way.. forget those standards altogether and make everything AES67. Just put an 8 port gigabit switch into the mixer and plug everything into it

Just like Bluetooth works great until it doesn't. Ya don't have noise problems until you have them. I don't encounter noise very often either, but have in the past a few times. Resolved a few issues in some club system installs.

Given that I haven't cabled things up yet, and won't run RCA from the TASCAM CD-200's - I need to buy cables. It has RCA, Coaxial Serial Digital & Toslink Optical outputs, I'm going with the Toslink.

Dante.

[SWS Productions]

OSC (Open Sound Control) has been around for a while, and Dante...….A standard RJ45 will most likely break in heavy pro-audio use so it requires a good quality twisted pair Cat5e/6 which can be expensive in the long run along with the reinforced connectors. Then there's the interface hardware which isn't cheap either (and software)

Anyway, sorry for the lengthy off-topic.

It already has - Ethercon. It's basically coming through the "hybrid" stage right now. My Midas consoles still have analog inputs on the channels at the console, and Ethercon RJ-45 connectors to interface with the A/D active stage boxes. I'm not sure if any of them (consoles) are full digital only yet, but that's just a matter of time. If one were to look at stuff more high end than the M32's you'd probably find some pure digital consoles out there that don't have any analog inputs in the main desk.

[Reticuli]

How do you know if electrical noise caused by ground loops in peripheral gear?

No. How do you know that a ground loop is causing problems on a coax electrical SPDIF connection that warrants bothering trying to get a Toslink into a DJ mixer?

No discernable difference in the audio quality with SPDIF or RCA/analog for that matter.

YMMV based on the quality of everything after.

[light-o-matic]

Yes, Ethercon connectors.. just a simple mashup of a standard RJ45 plug inside a stay dard XLR shell. So you can use a regular Ethernet patch cable if you don't have an ethercon cable handy. Common on most pro gear but not on DJ gear. Pioneer uses them on the TOUR1 models but they should be used on all the decks. I already have a pioneer deck with a damaged Ethernet jack.

Re AES

Re AES67, it is a standard for digital audio over IP.. like Dante, Ravenna and others.. it was designed to promote interoperability between those two protocols and several other proprietary protocols that are all very similar but not the same. There is already a lot of gear that supports both Dante and AES67, or Ravenna and AES67. So, hopefully AES67 will become the defacto standard.

And sorry for confusing the discussion by mentioning my old idea for S/PDIF over Ethernet.. but what I meant by that is a layer 1 link, where the link protocol is still S/PDIF or AES/EBU but electrically it is Ethernet. But can't be plugged into an Ethernet switch.

In these times it no longer makes sense because putting a full IP stack into a piece of gear is incredibly cheap.

[SWS Productions]

No. How do you know that a ground loop is causing problems on a coax electrical SPDIF connection that warrants bothering trying to get a Toslink into a DJ mixer?

YMMV based on the quality of everything after.

Currently building new system. Toslink is the best way to interface CD player from rack to console - given the options on the decks that I own (TASCAM CD-200). Use simple D/A converter at the console, connect with RCA's to analog inputs of controller.

Nobody's trying to "get" anything into "DJ Mixer". The decks already have Toslink outputs - just use adapters at the console. Done, it's that easy.

This is really quite simple - very basic audio interface protocols.

EXAMPLE: https://www.parts-express.com/dac-di...--usb--180-998

However, I would like SPDIF/Toslink inputs added to the console for sure.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

[Reticuli]

That's because the DJM-800 DSP, while 32bit, is fixed point.

Not sure why I said that. It's a TI TMS 320 series DSP running in 32bit floating point with 24bit word length from the SPDIFs and ADCs and out to 24bit for the SPDIFs and 24bit DACs.