WEISS INT202 Owner's Manual

Firewire interface

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Weiss Engineering Ltd.

Florastrasse 42, 8610 Uster, Switzerland

www.weiss-highend.com

INT202

OWNERS MANUAL

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Page 1 Weiss Engineering Ltd. Florastrasse 42, 8610 Uster, Switzerland www.weiss-highend.com INT202 OWNERS MANUAL...
Page 2 On the following pages I will introduce you to our views on high quality audio processing and interfacing. These include fundamental digital and analog audio concepts and the INT202 Firewire Interface. I wish you a long-lasting relationship with your INT202. Yours sincerely, Daniel Weiss President, Weiss Engineering Ltd.
Page 3: Table Of Contents
Contact Author: Daniel Weiss, Weiss Engineering LTD. Weiss Engineering LTD. reserves the right to make changes to product specification or documentation without prior notice. Updated manuals and datasheets are available at our website for downloading. Weiss Engineering LTD. makes no warranty, representation or guarantee regarding the suitability of its products for any particular purpose, nor does part of this manual, and specifically discalims any and all liability, including without limitation consequential or incidental damages.
Page 4: A Short History Of Weiss Engineering
OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE INT202 FIREWIRE INTERFACE A SHORT HISTORY OF WEISS ENGINEERING After studying electrical engineering, Daniel Weiss joined the Willi Studer (Studer - Revox) company in Switzerland. His work included the design of a sampling frequency converter and of digital signal processing electronics for digital audio recorders.
Page 5: Our Mission And Product Philosophy
2007 Introduction of the CASTOR, our High-End Hi-Fi Power Amplifier 2008 Introduction of the MINERVA Firewire DAC and the VESTA Firewire – AES/EBU Interface 2009 Introduction of the INT202 Firewire Interface, the ATT202 Passive Attenuator, the DAC202 D/A Converter Page...
Page 6: Advanced Digital And Analog Audio Concepts Explained
OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE INT202 FIREWIRE INTERFACE ADVANCED DIGITAL AND ANALOG AUDIO CONCEPTS EXPLAINED Jitter Suppression and Clocking What is jitter and how does it affect audio quality? In the audio field the term jitter designates a timing uncertainty of digital clock signals. E.g. in an Analog to Digital Converter (A/D) the analog signal is sampled (measured) at regular time intervals;...
Page 7 CD. But the PLL should not follow the short term fluctuations (jitter). Think of the PLL as beeing like a very slow-reacting fly-wheel. Jitter handling in the INT202 Firewire Interface in more detail The Jitter Elimination Technologies (JET) PLL on the chip used in the INT202 feature state-of-the art jitter rejection abilities and extremely low intrinsic jitter levels.
Page 8: Upsampling, Oversampling And Sampling Rate Conversion In General
OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE INT202 FIREWIRE INTERFACE and has its corner frequency set low enough to give good reference-jitter attenuation. The other regulates the analog oscillator and has its corner frequency set much higher, to moderate the intrinsic jitter. The two corner frequencies might be around 10 Hz and 100 kHz, for example.
Page 9 OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE INT202 FIREWIRE INTERFACE frequency of 44.1kHz allows to represent signals up to 22.05kHz. The designer of the system has to take care that any frequencies above 22.05kHz are sufficiently suppressed before sampling at 44.1kHz. This suppression is done with the help of a low pass filter which cuts off the frequencies above 22.05kHz.
Page 10: Dithering
OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE INT202 FIREWIRE INTERFACE from the CD and upsamples it to 88.2kHz or 176.4kHz or even higher. The output of the upsampler is then fed to the D/A converters which in turn feeds the reconstruction filter. All modern audio D/A converter chips have such an upsampler (or oversampler) already built into the chip.
Page 11: Firewire Vs Usb
OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE INT202 FIREWIRE INTERFACE I have given the example of a 24 bit recording which has to be truncated to 16 bits. Where is the application in High-End Hi-Fi audio? More and more signal processing is implemented in the digital domain. Think of digital equalizers, digital volume controls, upsamplers, digital pre-amplifiers, decoders for encoded signals on DVD etc.
Page 12 OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE INT202 FIREWIRE INTERFACE this also makes it safer to send a lot more audio via Firewire. That's why most of the multichannel interfaces (18 channels, 24 channels, etc.) are Firewire devices, and USB devices usually just send a two channel stereo signal.
Page 13: The Int202 Firewire Interface
The synchronization master always is the INT202 device, i.e. the computer is slaved to the INT202. The sampling rate is set via the Weiss Firewire IO window. On a Mac system the sampling rate set in AudioMidi sets the one in the Weiss Firewire IO window and vice versa.
Page 14 This is useful to find out the proper settings / configuration of the player program to achive bit transparency. Bit transparency means that the bits fed from the harddisk to the INT202 are not changed in any manner. Page...
Page 15 OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE INT202 FIREWIRE INTERFACE Frontpanel / Backpanel elements: Single Wire / Dual Wire modes select switch • Power on switch • Power / Bit Transparency check LED • Infrared receiver • Bit Transparency check switch • Two XLR connectors, single wire mode: OUT1 and •...
Page 16: Operation / Installation
INT202 power switch to “on”, the power LED at the INT202 may be lit. If this is the case then the INT202 is powered from bus power on the Firewire bus. If you connect an external power supply to the INT202...
Page 17 If your DAC requires the 176.4 or 192 kHz sampling rates to be in dual wire format then switch the INT202 to “dual wire” and connect OUT1 (or OUT3) to the left input of your DAC and OUT2 (or OUT4) to the right input.
Page 18 The volume setting is retained when switching the INT202 off / on, while the phase is reset to “not inverted” after a power cycle. Software installation Perform the following installation procedure before connecting the INT202 to the computer.
Page 19 INT202 can be distroyed because of the bus power on the Firewire bus. The power LED at the INT202 may be lit. If this is the case then the INT202 is powered from bus power on the Firewire bus. If the LED is not lit then an appropriate...
Page 20 Master: Is the device which is sync master on the virtual bus in case multiple devices (“INT202s”) are connected. Sync Source: The clock to which the INT202 should sync to. Usually this is the INT202’s internal clock generator. Sampling Rate: The sampling rate of the device when internally clocked.
Page 21: Technical Data
0dB and –60dB: From 0dB to –20dB in 0.5dB steps and from –20dB to –60dB in 1dB steps. In the 0dB gain position the INT202 is fully bit transparent, i.e. it does not change the data in any way. In all other gain positions the output signal is properly dithered to a wordlength of 24 bits.
Page 22: Contact
OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE INT202 FIREWIRE INTERFACE CONTACT For any questions, suggestions etc. feel free to contact us at: Weiss Engineering Ltd. Florastrasse 42 8610 Uster Switzerland Phone: +41 44 940 20 06 Fax: +41 44 940 22 14 Email: weiss@weiss.ch...