SEK'D  PRODIF 32 Gold

Prodif 32 Gold PCI Card

Type:            Digital ADAT Acquistion I/O PCI PC card
Design:         Germany
Year:            1997
Price:            about 700 USD/EUR (new/1998)
Homepage:  www.sekd.com

User Interface: Poor
Editing Features: Very poor
Sound Quality: Good
Price / Performance: Fair

 

 

The ADAT computer reality

When I finnaly got my Fiji, everything seemed to work at last and digital transfers and recording from my Promix01 to my hard disk via S/PDIF worked wonders. But things changed when I swapped my Promix for the new Yamaha's beast the O1V. This new mixing console was meant to work with a digital I/O card thus gaining some 8 digital inputs and 8 digital assignable outputs for multitrack recording. I opted for an ADAT I/O card as it was the most popular digital format available. But most of all I knew that dedicated ADAT I/O cards existed on PC platforms...

I got in mind to take advantage of these features to get a cheap but high performance hard disk streaming system for direct recording. The other scope was to playback live throught the mixing console on different tracks (and FX) the audio outputs of some virtual synths such as Rebirth or plainly sampled audio tracks from Cakewalk. In the ADAT I/O card, two competitors came up: the SEK'D Prodif 32 Gold and the FRONTIER Wavecenter. I choosed the Prodif 32 Gold for a few reasons:

It was the only card that was on a PCI bus with high speed 32 Bits transfers. 16 Bits ISA transfers are much more slower using DMA protocoles and this standard is being gradually phased out in almost all new computer motherboards. I wanted a card that would survive the turn of the century.

I was quite pleased by the performance of the Prodif 24 card in it's dedicated role of Digital I/O. I must say that the Prodif 32 Gold was even much better manufactured and professionally layed up. I didn't want a multipurpose card that would do MIDI, Sampler, Coffee and much more... I wanted something that worked well without loading my CPU's workload.

All in all I must admit that the Prodif 32 Gold has met all my requirements and has proven to be the perfect sidekick for my Yamaha O1V mixing desk. Divers installed like a breeze in full plug and play. The card appears in all my Windows apps like 4 stereo pairs fully assignable to different programs. The card sync's almost instantly to any signal and audio quality is digitally perfect. Th PCI seems highly recommended to get 8 channels in and out simultaneously at 48Khz in 24bit depth thus giving some 3Mbyte /s continuous data transfer !!! My hard drive has had hard times following the rate... But my P120 CPU hasn't been highly loaded through these operations and my workstation is still fully operational.

I would always recommend the Prodif 32 Card for it's high performance and uncompromising quality. You really get for what you paid and after all you get a real ADAT workstation for very cheap with digital editing facilities. My only regret is that the drivers aren't Direct X and don't perform quickly with software synths such as Rebirth or Vaz but I'm urging them to get on these... This card is worth it's cost and is a great addition to any home-studios with ADAT compatible equipment. SEK'D has matured fully after their somewhat "experimental" Prodif24 soundcard. I would say it was their first and they have the right to make some mistakes, like everybody...

 

 

Specifications

 

Module Features Comments
Digital I/O Digital Format:
S/PDIF (2 Channel Coaxial & Optical)

AES/BU (2 Channel Coaxial)

ADAT (8 Channel Optical)

16 / 18 / 20 / 24 Bit definition
32 / 44,1 / 48Khz sampling rates

Connectors:
RCA Coaxial Electrical Input
RCA Coaxial Electrical Ouptut
Optical Toslink Input
Optical Toslink Output
Internal jumper

 Digital Inputs are automatically in slave mode and sync's almost instantly to the input signal. ADAT are sync'ed via ADAT PLL lock and NOT digital clock sync.

AES/EBU signals (3 wire) must be rewired on 2 wires to stay compatible with RCA connections.

Supported formats can cope with all standard digital equipment you can find on the market except TDIF (Digital Tascam Format).

Internal jumper can get direct S/PDIF input (from CD-Rom).
Software Driver Win95/98 & NT (also available on Macintosh) Driver installs as a breeze with full Plug'n'Play support.

Self test of hardware at startup included.

Driver controls:
Input select (Electric/Optical or Jumper)
Output Select (Auto, Input monitor or Play only)
ADAT Forced Option
Input Check Options

 To access the control panel you have to open "system" in the control panel and opent the Prodif Gold settings windows and choose "settings" tab. (could have done simpler...)

Driver is MME compatible (but still not Direct X) and appears like 4 stereo outputs and Inputs in all popular audio programs !!! Great to get virtual synths output out off your computer without no D/A Converters and bandwidth loss.

 

 

Related Gear

SEK'D Prodif 32
The Prodif 32 and Prodif 32 Gold cards share the same component layout and physical implementation. In fact the cards are EXACTLY the same. The only difference comes with their hardware operating system: the Prodif32 is somewhat less "intelligent" than it's Gold cousin because it isn't able to understand and decode ADAT Signals. This ADAT operating mode left aside, the Prodif 32 works exactly like it's Gold cousin in S/PDIF and AES/EBU modes with flawless install procedure and operation and high quality digital audio transfers. A great choice to have a dedicated digital I/O on a fast PCI bus for high end workstations.

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