User Manual

User’s Guide MADI Router © RME !4
1. Introduction
The RME MADI Router is designed to be the centerpiece of small and large digital audio
networks based on the widely adopted point-to-point Multichannel Audio Digital Interface
(MADI alias AES10).
It is able to manage all the tasks that are required to set up and to control a MADI environment,
from inspection of signal integrity and sampling frequency, to format conversion, to full stream
and single-channel block routing. It supports a variety of common physical interface formats
of MADI including optical and coaxial, supplemented by the evolving twisted pair variant, which
allows much simpler and more affordable MADI setups.
2. Package Contents
Please check that your MADI Router package contains each of the following:
● MADI Router
● 2 rack ears with screws
● 2 power cords
● User’s guide
3. Brief Description and Characteristics
The MADI Router is a compact device designed to link MADI devices of any manufacturer with
unprecedented flexibility in signal routing. It provides this flexibility by serving as a format
converter between optical and electrical signals, as a signal repeater, and as a distributor and
merger of several MADI signals, all at the same time. The MADI Router combines many
advantages of point-to-point audio connections, such as low latency and fast recovery time
from signal line interruptions, with the flexibility of networked audio connections in which any
device has access to any channel available on the network of connected devices.
At the simplest level all input signals are passed on to the desired output unaltered. This type
of connection is beneficial when manufacturers have embedded additional status or remote
control data information in the MADI stream, or if parts of the MADI signals should be re-routed
at the touch of a button, for example if a stage box fails.
It is also possible to create new arrangements of audio channels within a MADI output stream.
For this purpose, four independent ‘virtual’ matrices are provided, each of which comprises
768 input and 64 output channels. As such, any of the 768 audio channels that make up the
12 physical MADI input ports can be used to compose a 64 channel output from this matrix.
This 64 channel 'virtual' matrix output can then be sent to any of the MADI Router's 12 physical
MADI output ports.
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