Instruction/ maintenance manual of the product SX-5e Antex electronic
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SX-5e SX-6 SX-34 SX-36 Digital Audio Adapter User's Manual September 17, 1999 Rev. E A NT EX ELE CTRON ICS COR PORA TION 1125 W. 190 th STREET GA RDENA, CA LIFORNI A 90248 info@antex.
Declaration of Conformity Standards to which Conformity is Declared: EN55022 (Class A) 1994, EN 50082-1 1992 This equipm ent has been v erified to comply with the limits for a class A computing device, pursuant to FCC R ules. In order to m aintain compliance with FCC reg ulations, shielded cables must be used with this equipm ent.
TA BLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...................................................................... 1 CAR D INSTAL LATION ............................................................. 1 JUM PER S ETTINGS & C ONNEC T IONS ...................... 2 I/O ADDRESSES AND INTERRUPTS .
SX-34 M IXER A ND BLOC K DIAGR AM ......................... 34 SX-6 M IXER AN D BLOC K DIAGRA M ........................... 36 SX-5e M IXER A ND BLOC K DIAGR AM ......................... 39 ANTE X METE R ...............................................
FIGURES Figure 1. SX-5e,6,3 4,35 & SX-36 Jumper Setti ngs ................... 2 Figure 2. SX-35/36 Connecti ons .............................................. 5 Figure 3. SX-34 Connecti ons ................................................... 8 Figure 4.
1 INTRODUCTION The Antex SX-5e, SX-6, SX-34 and SX- 36 fam ily of cards ar e ISA bus audio “add-in” car ds for the PC. They all incorporate DSP’s (Digit al Signal Processors ), which allow the cards to do a variety of audio form ats. (MPEG, PCM16, MSADPCM, etc.
2 Set the board num ber with jumpers as shown below. If only one board is being used, leave the jumpers off (s ets to board num ber one). W hen using mor e than one card in a computer, each boar d must be given a diff erent num ber by setting the j umpers dif fer - ently on each card.
3 I/O A DDRESSES A ND INTERRUPTS SX-5e, 6, 34, 35 & 36 I/O addresses and interrupts are sof tware selectable. The val id I/O addresses are: 180h, 220h, 280h, 300h, 320h and 380h The valid interrupt s are: 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11 and 12 Note that interrupt s 3 and 4 are normally used by the computer ’s COM ports and w ill not be available.
4 balanced connections and shielded coax cable for unbalanced connections. See the section “Balanced and Unbalanced Sig - nals”..
5 SX-35/36 CO NNECTOR DESCRI PTIO N JP1 SX-35/3 6 JP4 JP7 JP8 JP9 BALANCED IN/O UT JP3 Pin A ssi gnm ent 1G r o u n d 2 Rig h t In - 3L e f t I n - 4R i g h t O u t - 5L e f t O u t - 6 Rig h t In + 7.
6 LINE I/0 (JP8) Pin 1 Right Line I nput + Pin 3 Right Line I nput - Pin 5 Left Line I nput + Pin 7 Left Line I nput - Pin 9 Right Line O utput + Pin 11 Right Line O u t put - Pin 13 Left Line O ut put + Pin 15 Left Line O ut put - Pin 2,4,6,8, 10,12,14,16 Ground This connector duplicates the f unction of t he DB9 connector.
7 A UX IN (JP9) Pin 1 Right Aux Input + Pin 3 Right Aux Input - Pin 5 Left Aux Input + Pin 7 Left Aux Input - Pin 9,11,13,15 No connection Pin 2,4,6,8, 10,12,14,16 Ground The Auxiliary input s are balanced inputs, the same as the Line I n and can be used in the same way; as a record source or analog feed- t hr oug h to the Line O ut .
8 SX-34 CONNECTOR DESCRI PTIO N JP5 LINE IN MIC SX-34 A UX LINE OUT JP6 JP7 JP4 JP1 Figure 3. SX-34 Connect i ons 1. SPx Header - JP1 JP1 is a 40-pin, dual-r ow, 2mm spaced header the provides connections for an SPx module. 2. Output Header - JP5 JP5 is a 5-pin, 0.
9 3. A UX Header - JP6 JP6 is a 5-pin, 0.100" spaced header that pr ovides connec- tions for lef t and right auxiliary input signals. T hese are the same connections provided by the AUX jack on the brack et. Signals present at JP6 ar e switched in only w hen ther e is no plug in the AUX jack .
10 5. Mono Header - JP4 JP4 is a 2-pin, 0.100" spaced header that pr ovides a mono in- put connection. T his input is not curr ent ly supported. 1 Ground Mono In p ut 2.
11 SX-6 CONNECTOR DESCRI PTIO N JP1 SX-6 JP4 JP2 BALANCED OUT JP3 Pin As signm ent 1 Ground 2n c 3n c 4 Right Out - 5 Left O ut - 6n c 7n c 8 Right Out + 9 Left O ut + DB- 9 Femal e Balanced A nal og .
12 LINE OUT (JP 2) Pin 1,3,5,7 No connection Pin 9 Right Line O ut + Pin 11 Right Line O ut – Pin 13 Left Line O ut + Pin 15 Left Line O ut – Pin 2,4,6,8, 10,12,14,16 Ground This connector duplicates the f unction of t he DB9 connector.
13 SX-5e CONNECTOR DESCRI PTIO N The SX-5e is self -explanatory. T he left and right Line O ut con- nections are RCA jack s on the card br acket, which are labeled. There are no ot her connectors on t he car d. BA LA NCED AND UNBA LA NCED SIGNALS The SX-5e and the SX- 34 have unbalanced signals only.
14 Antex cards are “active”; transf ormers ar e not used. Normally, one should not gr ound t he out put of an act ive dr iver. However th e drivers used on the Antex cards are specif ically designed to do this and behave identically to a transf ormer .
15 This is because the input amplifier stages of the car d have been overloaded. Also, recording from a sour ce with too low a signal level, such as plugging a microphone direct ly into a line level in- put, will result in a very noisy recording.
16 externally, there must be 2 cards inst alled in the comput er, so that there is one physical output f or each device. COMPRESSI ON, DATA RA TES, A ND NETWORKS The amount of data (t he size) of a sound f ile is af f ected by several fact ors. The most obvious is the sam ple rate.
17 a file, but no fading . Some audio editing progr ams do edit MPEG files, but they actually convert the f ile to PCM16 first , and t hen convert it back again af ter editing . This has two pr oblems. First, it is slow , and second, each time the conversion is done, t he sound quality is degr aded.
18 tained for a given output bitrate t heref ore changes with sample rate. In the Antex soft w are the bit rate is specified on a per-c hannel ba- sis. Theref ore, request ing 64 kbits/ s and stereo will result in a 128 kbits/ s compressed MPEG stream.
19 DRIV ER INST A LLA T ION WINDOWS 95 1. Af t er inst alling the car d, power up the system. 2. Open Contr ol Panel-Add New Hardware applet. 3. Press “Next”. 4. Select “No”. Press “Next”. 5. Select “Sound, video and gam e cont r oller s”.
20 5. Sel ect “Driv er” tab. 6. Select antexwav.vxd, click on “Change Dr iver”. 7. Select "Have Disk" 8. Point t o locat ion of driver f iles. Click “OK” . Click “OK” . 9. Select antex.dr v, click on “Change Dr iver”. 10.
21 8. Make sure “Search f or a bett er dr iver…” is selected. 9. Select the locat ion of the new driver. 10. Click “ Next”. Click “Next”. Click “Next”. Click “O K”. 11. Point to locat ion of dr iver f iles again. 12. Click “ OK”.
22 A NT EX A PPL ICA TION S OFTWA RE INSTA LL A TION The Antex Demo, Mixer, and Meter progr am s ar e on a separ at e floppy disk. T he same disk is used f or W indows 95/98 and NT. The sof tware installs in the usual manner . 1. Insert t he disk into the f loppy drive.
23 USING W I NDO WS DEMO NSTRAT IO N SOFTWA RE Figure 5. A nt ex Demo Program The Antex Demo prog ram allows basic recording and playback of .W AV files in any of the compression f orm ats available on the Antex audio board you have installed in your system.
24 Compression: This list box selects specific compression f ormats f or re- cording, and displays the compressed f orm at of t he file currently playing. Note that the Sample Rate and Com - pression for r ecording can only be changed when the card is in “Stop” mode.
25 Channels: These butt ons select mono or ster eo recording , and dis- play the number of channels of the cur r ent file. VU Mete rs: The VU meters show t he relative signal level of the current file t hat is being recorded or played.
26 File: This butt on selects a filenam e for recording or playback . Once this button has been pressed the dialog box in Figure 7 will appear. I f you hold down the “Alt ” k ey while clicking on File, the dialog box show n below in Figure 8 will appear.
27 Volume: These contr ols allow changing the volume of the playback only. INSTA LLING AND USING MULTIPLE CA RDS I N A SYST EM W hen using more than one car d in a system, each card m ust have a dif fer ent adapter number. This is set by using the jumper s on top of the car d.
28 Simultaneous Record and Playback MPEG MSADPCM PCM 16 SX-34 No 22.05 KHz 48 KHz SX-35 No 22.05 KHz 48 KHz SX-36 32 KHz 32 KHz 48 KHz Dual Device Playback MPEG MSADPCM PCM 16 SX-5e 48 KHz 32 KHz 48 KHz SX-6 48 KHz 32 KHz 48 KHz SX-34 44.1 KHz 32 KHz 48 KHz SX-35 44.
29 and right channels of a st ereo sig nal. Also, only one record device is shown. The small circles with a letter inside correspond be- tween the M ixer Diagram and the Block Diag ram.
30 “Radio pushbutton” controls G, H, I , and J determ ine the record source. Only one butt on on at a time is allowed. It m ay seem strang e that button J w ill set the recor d source to Line Out . This is done to allow the use of at tenuators C, D, or E t o contr ol the record level.
31 down if the output sig nal fr om the Antex card is t oo loud. One ex- ception to setting both sliders at maximum is when playing 2 files simultaneously. In t his case, it may be necessar y to lower the sliders slight ly to prevent clipping f rom occurr ing when peak s of both f iles occur at the same t ime.
32 L K A A B C D E G H I J Figure 9. SX-36 M i xer.
33 Figure 10. SX-36 Bl ock Di agram.
34 SX-34 MI XER AND BLOCK DIA GRAM The SX-34 diagram s are the same as the SX-36, with the excep- tion that t he SX-34 does not have the Input or O utput T rim Con- trols.
35 Figure 12. SX-34 Bl ock Di agram.
36 SX-6 MI XER AND BLOCK DIA GRAM Output T rim Contr ol B determines the level of the output signal on Line Out which corresponds to dig ital clipping. If the cont rol is set to +8, the maximum output signal level is +8 dBu. If the cont rol is set to +20, t he maximum output signal level is +20dBu.
37 M L B K Figure 13. SX-6 M i xer.
38 Figure 14. SX-6 Bl ock Diagram.
39 SX-5e MI XER AND BLOCK DIA GRAM Due to the simplicity of the SX -5e, the Ant ex M ixer does not add control of any features t hat are not accessible t hrough the Ant ex Demo. T he Play 1 and Play 2 Sliders duplicat e t he f unction of the sliders in the Antex Demo pr og ram.
40 and controlling the volume using the m aster volume contr ol on the external amplif ier or mixing board the Ant ex Card is connected to. One exception to sett ing both sliders at maximum is when playing 2 files simultaneously.
41 Figure 16. SX-5e Bl ock Di agram.
42 A N TE X M ETER The fig ure below show s a typical Antex Meter window . T his can be opened by running “met er.exe” or double-click ing on the met er icon. The siz e of the window can be changed by dragging t he side, bottom or cor ner of the window .
43 If you rig ht -click or double- click on the m eter window, the f ollowing window will pop-up: Figure 18. A nt ex M et er pul l - dow n menu.
44 Clicking on “ O pt ions” will open the following window: Figure 19. A nt ex M et er opt i ons “Visible Lines” allows you to select which devices have VU meter s displayed. “Mode” allow s you to select w het her the meter is peak reading or averaging ( VU).
45 “Meter Update Interval” deter mines how often the m eter prog ram reads the level data f rom t he Antex Card. Note t hat even if the meter is in peak mode, peak s which occur in between the update intervals will be missed. To avoid t his, the update interval should be 5 ms or less.
46 TR OUBLES HOOTIN G I get an error message when tr ying to run the Antex Demo program. 1. Ca rd did not i nstall corre ctly be cause of an I/O or i nterrupt conflict .
47 Files I record sound “dul l ” . 1. Use a higher sample r ate. Lower sample rat es reduce the high f requency content , m aking r ecordings sound dull. There is a lot of noise or hum, even w hen the Antex Card is idle. 1. Ther e may be a wiring problem.
48 too hot. T o see if t his is the problem, does t he Line Out sound distorted when just listening to the recor d source as a f eed- throug h? Files recorded are of poor qual i t y. 1. Som e for mats, bitr ates, and sample r ates do not sound as good as other s.
49 • If using several cards in a system, tr y just playing one f ile on one card. If this solves t he problem, your system may not be f ast enough to handle as m any cards and f iles at once as y ou want. Using compr essed file f ormat s will re- duce the amount of data req uired by each card.
50 A PPENDIX Connectors for Male Headers For connecting to the auxiliary connectors on t he Antex Card, there are 2 types of connectors to use. One type is the individual crimp type, such as the Molex C-Grid series. For sing le row headers, the par t number would be 50-57-900X, where X is the number of contacts.
51 milliwatt into 600 ohm s, which is .775 volts RMS. dBV uses 1 volt RMS as the refer ence. Digital Clipping Digital clipping is the point where the Analog t o Digit al converter becomes saturat ed. The sig nal is “all ones”. For a 16 bit system, this is a value of +32768 or –32768.
52 Specificat ions Unless otherwise noted, THD+N and Dynamic Rang e measure- ments are done at 1KHz , A weighting, 48 KHz sample r ate. Max im um input and output levels are f or dig it al f ull scale. A ll Cards ( as appl i cable): Sample rates .....
53 SX-34: THD+N ........................................................................... .02% max Dy namic Range ............................................................... 80dB min Lin e Out lev el .............................................
54 SX-5e: THD+N ................................................................................... .02% Dy namic Range ............................................................... 85dB min Lin e Out lev el .........................................
55 In essence, dig ital audio is a technological pr ocess whereby an analog audio signal ( produced when sound wav es in the air excite a microphone) is first converted into a continuous str eam of num - bers (or dig its).
56 Figure 20. A nal og- t o-Digital To visualize the analog-to- digital conversion process, ref er to Figure 20. At the top is one cycle of an analog input signal wav e. W e' ve used a simple sine wav e t o make visualization easier. I n this example, the sig nal has a peak- to-peak am plitude of 20 units, measured by the scale on the lef t.
57 Digital- to-analog conversion (used in playback) is the exact oppo- site of the analog -to dig ital conversion process and is illustr ated in Figure 21.
58 The f oregoing is a very brief and, of necessity, oversimplif ied ex- planation of how digital audio works. For t he interested reader, the book Pr inciples of Digital Audio by Ken C. Pohlmann, copy- right 1985 by Howard W . Sams, is hig hly recommended.
An important point after buying a device Antex electronic SX-5e (or even before the purchase) is to read its user manual. We should do this for several simple reasons:
If you have not bought Antex electronic SX-5e yet, this is a good time to familiarize yourself with the basic data on the product. First of all view first pages of the manual, you can find above. You should find there the most important technical data Antex electronic SX-5e - thus you can check whether the hardware meets your expectations. When delving into next pages of the user manual, Antex electronic SX-5e you will learn all the available features of the product, as well as information on its operation. The information that you get Antex electronic SX-5e will certainly help you make a decision on the purchase.
If you already are a holder of Antex electronic SX-5e, but have not read the manual yet, you should do it for the reasons described above. You will learn then if you properly used the available features, and whether you have not made any mistakes, which can shorten the lifetime Antex electronic SX-5e.
However, one of the most important roles played by the user manual is to help in solving problems with Antex electronic SX-5e. Almost always you will find there Troubleshooting, which are the most frequently occurring failures and malfunctions of the device Antex electronic SX-5e along with tips on how to solve them. Even if you fail to solve the problem, the manual will show you a further procedure – contact to the customer service center or the nearest service center
