Related Manuals for ALFAtron ALF-DSP88-U
Summary of Contents for ALFAtron ALF-DSP88-U
- Page 1 ALFATRON ELECTRONICS GmbH Germany ALF-DSP88-U 8x8 Digital Sound Processor All Rights Reserved Version: ALF-DSP88-U V1.1 22022022...
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Page 2: Table Of Contents
ALF-DSP88-U Table of Contents 1. Hardware ..................5 1.1 Safety Instructions ............................ 5 1.2 Audio Wiring Reference ........................... 6 1.3 Specifications ............................7 1.4 Mechanical ............................... 8 1.5 Front Panel ............................... 8 1.6 Rear Panel ..............................9 2. Technology Overview ............... 9 2.1 Introduction to DSP Technology ...................... - Page 3 ALF-DSP88-U 3.3.14 USB Interface ..........................28 3.4 Setting Menu ............................30 3.4.1 File Menu ............................30 3.4.2 Device Setting ..........................31 3.4.3 GPIO Setting............................ 31 3.4.4 Group Setting ..........................34 3.4.5 Panel Setting ........................... 35 3.4.6 Help Menu ............................37 4.
- Page 4 ALF-DSP88-U Preface Read this user manual carefully before using the product. Pictures shown in this manual are for reference only. Different models and specifications are subject to the real product. This manual is only for operational instruction, please contact the local distributor for maintenance assistance.
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Page 5: Hardware
ALF-DSP88-U 1. Hardware 1.1 Safety Instructions Safety Instructions Important safety instructions: 1. Read these instructions. 2. Keep these instructions secure. 3. Pay attention to all warnings. 4. Follow all instructions. 5. Please keep the device away from water. The device cannot be exposed to water drips or water splashes; make sure that there is no object with liquid near the device, such as a vase. -
Page 6: Audio Wiring Reference
ALF-DSP88-U 1.2 Audio Wiring Reference Balanced Audio Connection Any of these audio connections may occur on either input or output terminals. Unbalanced Audio Connection RCA audio connections and 1/4-inch TS audio connections are unbalanced connections. A multi-strand shielded conductor may be installed on both ends of the unbalanced connection. In such a case, please note to join the... -
Page 7: Specifications
ALF-DSP88-U 1.3 Specifications Alfatron ALF-DSP88-U SPECIFICATIONS Processor ADI SHARC 21489(x2) Sampling rate/Digitalizing bit 48K/24bit Input Gain 0 – 48dB in 3dB Steps Phantom Power Frequency Response (20~20KHz) ±0.2dB Maximum Level +24dBu THD + Noise 0.003%@4dBu Dynamic Range 110 dB Background Noise (A-weighted) -
Page 8: Mechanical
ALF-DSP88-U MECHANICAL Working Power AC110~240V 5Hz-60Hz Maximum Power Consumption <40W Rack Space Required Dimensions (Width x Depth x Height) 482 x 260 x 45mm Shipping Weight 1.4 Mechanical Space required: 1U (width * depth * height: 18.91″ x 9.5″x 1.72″ / 48.02 cm x 24.13 cm x 4.37 cm). The reserved head space is not included in the depth. -
Page 9: Rear Panel
GUI Software for the Audio DSP Hardware. This Manual mainly introduces the techniques used to achieve this goal. The Alfatron DSP Controller software is a Windows-based application, which is used to configure and control the DSP hardware. The Alfatron DSP Controller has 16 built-in presets, and the modules and sequences for each preset can be flexibly designed in accordance with the designer's requirements. -
Page 10: Audio Input Section
2.2 Audio Input Section The Alfatron ALF-DSP88-U supports up to 8 fixed analogue audio inputs, which can be connected via removable balanced phoenix connectors. The analogue input section supports microphone or line-level signals whose nominal levels range from 0dBu to +48dBu in 3dBu steps. -
Page 11: Audio Output Section
Mute: Mutes the analogue output of the respective channel 2.4 Floating Point DSP The ALF-DSP88-U adopts analogue devices’ ADI SHARC audio processors, enabling 32-bit and 40-bit floating- point processing, which can be compared to 40-bit floating-point processing of other devices. Floating-point processing provides prominent advantages for the users in terms of sound quality and usability. - Page 12 ALF-DSP88-U Floating-Point Processing On the contrary, by taking advantage of floating-point processing, no matter what the signal level is, all available bits are uniformly distributed to the signals. Basically, the floating points use some bits as indexes to set up general signal level and distribute the remaining bits to signals with independently stored level.
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Page 13: Audio Flow
ALF-DSP88-U 2.5 Audio Flow -13-... -
Page 14: Typical System Application
ALF-DSP88-U 2.6 Typical System Application Conferencing System: The processor can be connected to microphones, amplifiers, speakers, and other audio peripherals (like USB audio from a PC) so as to process all audio signals and advanced algorithms like AEC in a typical conferencing system. -
Page 15: Software
Software Installation: Visit the device web page address: 169.254.10.227 1. Download software from the Alfatron website and install files. 2. Double click the downloaded file and install by following the instructions on the screen. After the software is installed, read other parts of the help file, or execute the software. -
Page 16: Using The Software
ALF-DSP88-U 3.2 Using the Software After enabling the software, the main menu is shown as below: Click the button in the right corner of the main menu to find all processors on the network automatically. The user may connect to the designated processor based on their own needs; after the connection, the indicator will flash;... -
Page 17: Input Source
ALF-DSP88-U 3.3.1 Input Source Sensitivity: Microphone gain, 0dB - 48dB in 3dB Steps. Phantom Power: Provides +48V phantom power for external condenser microphones. (Do not enable phantom power when the power is not required, this is to prevent damaging any non-Phantom powered devices when connected.) Sine Wave: Select the Sine Wave button and drag the frequency to generate sine wave with selected frequency (selectable 20Hz - 20 kHz). - Page 18 ALF-DSP88-U Fig.3.2 Expander The expander has the following control parameters: Threshold: The expander activates only when the signal exceeds this threshold (allowing the transmission of the signal). As a standard practice, the signal is often set at the ambient noise level Ratio: Ratio refers to the slope below the threshold point on the gain curve.
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Page 19: Compressor & Limiter
ALF-DSP88-U 3.3.3 Compressor & Limiter Compressor The compressor is used to reduce the dynamic range of the signal higher than the threshold set by the user, and to maintain the dynamic range of the signal lower than the threshold. The compressor has the following control parameters: Threshold: When the signal level is higher than the threshold, the compressor / limiter begins to reduce the gain. -
Page 20: Automatic Gain Control
ALF-DSP88-U Limiter The limiter only has one key task: make sure that the signal will not exceed the threshold level in any way. By adjusting the compressor's control parameters, its working modes will be very similar to those of the limiter. The core working principle of a limiter is that it focuses on the signal below the threshold level as well as how the gain attenuation is produced before the occurrence of overshoot signal. -
Page 21: Equalizers
ALF-DSP88-U Auto gain control includes the following control parameters and switches: Threshold: When the signal level is lower than the threshold, the input-to-output ratio is 1:1. When the signal level is higher than the threshold, the input-to-output ratio changes with the ratio control settings. The threshold is set as the background noise just higher than the level of input signal. -
Page 22: Feedback Suppressor
ALF-DSP88-U Gain (dB): Refers to the increased or attenuated decibel value of the gain at the center frequency. Q: It refers to the quality factor of a filter. The adjustable range of the Q value is 0.02-50. When the filter is set as a parametric EQ filter, Q value refers to the width of the bell-shaped frequency response curve on both sides of the cut-off frequency. - Page 23 ALF-DSP88-U The feedback suppressor module has the following adjustable parameters: Panic Limiter Threshold: According to this parameter, any level higher than the threshold is absolutely “feedback”. When a signal level is higher than the feedback threshold, any of the following circumstances will occur; a) the output gain is temporarily attenuated to control the speed of feedback;...
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Page 24: Automixer
ALF-DSP88-U 3.3.7 Auto Mixer In a conference room, if several microphones are opened to the same gain level and there is only one person speaking, the audio pickup of the microphone may be not clear. Other microphones will pick up noise and reverberation in the room. -
Page 25: Acoustic Echo Cancelation
ALF-DSP88-U Priority: Priority settings may give priority treatment to high priority channels over low priority channels, and therefore the auto mixer algorithm will be affected accordingly. Priority ranges from 0 to 10. The higher the value, the higher the priority. -
Page 26: Noise Suppression
ALF-DSP88-U Note: The settings of the Acoustic Echo Cancellation module can be used cooperatively with the matrix module to determine signal routes. 3.3.9 Noise Suppression The Noise suppression module is used to remove non-human voice interference noise. It may distinguish human voice from non-human voice and treat the latter as noise. -
Page 27: High & Low Pass Filter
ALF-DSP88-U 3.3.11 High and Low Pass Filter Each output channel provides a pass-through filter module which consists of high-pass and low-pass filters. Each filter has four parameters to adjust as follows: Frequency: This sets the cutoff frequency of each filter. The cutoff frequency of Bessel and Butterworth are selectable in -3 dB steps, and the cutoff frequency of Linkwitz-Riley are selectable in -6dB steps. -
Page 28: Delay
ALF-DSP88-U 3.3.12 Delay The Delay module is used to add delay to the output audio signal. This can be used to align audio signals in physical time. Activate button: Turns On / Off the delay module and inserts it into audio signal path to increase fixed delay time for signals. - Page 29 ALF-DSP88-U ① Song playing information, double click to enter playlist ② Next song ③ Pause ④ Song volume adjustment ⑤ Play ⑥ Prev. song ⑦ Sound recording list ⑧ Sound recording volume adjustment ⑨ Stop recording ⑩ Start recording Soundcard Setting USB cable with double ends of Type-A can be used to connect DSP processor and computer host.
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Page 30: Setting Menu
ALF-DSP88-U 3.4 Setting Menu 3.4.1 File Menu In offline mode, click the pop-up file dialog and open an existed default document with suffix *.uma, or right click on the default document to open DSP.exe. “Save as” refers to saving presets on the application to local hard risk to realize easy copy and store. -
Page 31: Device Setting
ALF-DSP88-U 3.4.2 Device Setting Information like device name, network address and serial baud rate can be set under device setting. The maximum length of the device name is 16 characters. Default startup: Two startup preset modes are available for selection. One is any preset from 16 presets acting as startup preset. - Page 32 ALF-DSP88-U Input GPIO Setting Preset Trigger types: High level trigger, Low level trigger, High level trigger / Low level trigger cancellation, Low level trigger, High level cancellation, i.e., rising edge / falling edge trigger / rising edge trigger, falling edge cancellation / falling edge trigger, rising...
- Page 33 ALF-DSP88-U Trigger types: Same as above Command Command: The command code will be sent via RS232 when the trigger condition is satisfactory Analogue-to- Analogue-to-digital gain is very useful when connecting digital Gain a potentiometer externally. It may adjust input or output channel gain.
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Page 34: Group Setting
ALF-DSP88-U 3.4.4 Group Setting The interface for group assignments contains two sections including input and output labels. a Maximum of 4 groups are available. A channel can only participate in one group. In each same group, the channel volume adjustment and mute are synchronous. -
Page 35: Panel Setting
ALF-DSP88-U 3.4.5 Panel Setting Panel setting includes two panel types which are a 8-button panel with Volume control and an OLED panel. Use virtual cables to connect multiple physical online panels with the online DSP device via panel settings, to configure the panels for controlling selected DSP features. - Page 36 ALF-DSP88-U Click "add menu" to access the pop up menu selection box, choose the corresponding function and confirm it. After finishing the settings of the software menu configuration, click on the toolbar download icon to download the configuration to the hardware panel.
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Page 37: Help Menu
ALF-DSP88-U Panel operation and Indicators: 1. Button remains illuminated, indicating that it is configured with a mute function. 2. Button keeps flashing, which indicates that the button is configured with gain function. The configured Rotary Encoder adjusts the gain of the assigned channel. 13 indicators around the Rotary Encoder indicates gain level. They are on or off with gain level set. -
Page 38: Control
ALF-DSP88-U 4. Control 4.1 External Control Programmer The External control programmer supports UDP and RS232, and controls protocols for all control parameters of the processor, including module parameter controls, parameter acquisition, and preset calling. When UDP controls are used, the default port is 50000. Ports can be set in “Device Setting” in the DSP software. - Page 39 ALF-DSP88-U Length (byte3): invalid. 0x21 (parameter control): Data byte 5 thought 12 are respectively: byte 5~6 byte 7~8 byte 9~10 byte 11~12 Module ID Parameter Type Parameter 1 Parameter 2 Please refer to Appendix A to get the distribution of Module ID (byte 5 ~ 6).
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Page 40: Serial Port-To-Udp (Rs232 To Udp)
ALF-DSP88-U Byte 5: Fill in scenario numbers (0 - 15). Byte 6 - 8: Fill in 0. 4. Other Controls (0x74) Other controls include but not limited to GPIO, RS232, RS485, and central control replies. The protocol formats are as follows:... -
Page 41: Faqs
ALF-DSP88-U For example, when sending data “HELLO DSP” to device port 50000 of device ”192.168.10.22”, the protocol commands are as follows: 4 bytes prefix 4 bytes 2 bytes 1 byte 1 byte 128 bytes 0x1610A8C0 0xC350 0x09 0x00 ”HELLO DSP”... - Page 42 ALF-DSP88-U -42-...
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Page 43: Appendix A: Module Id Distribution
ALF-DSP88-U Command explanation: del config: delete configuration information, such as network configurations like IP address. The device restores to default IP 169.254.20.227 after deleting. del scenes: delete preset. All 16 presets of DSP devices restore to default values. del all: delete all sections except the program. -
Page 44: Appendix B: Module Parameter Types (1)
ALF-DSP88-U Appendix B: Module Parameter Types (1) Module Parameter Description Module Parameter Description Name Type Name Type Input Gain Output 0x10 Gain Compensation Source Mute 0x11 Link Sensitivity 0x12 Channel Level Phantom Power Switch Gain Signal Generator Type Mute Signal Generator... - Page 45 ALF-DSP88-U Appendix B : Module Parameter Types (2) Module Parameter Description Module Parameter Description Name Type Name Type Mixer Mixer Switch Feedback Switch Inhibition Mixer Gain Feedback Point Frequency High & Low High Pass Switch Feedback Point Gain Pass High Pass Type...
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Page 46: After-Sales
ALF-DSP88-U 6. After-sales Service Should you experience problems using the Alfatron ALF-DSP88-U, please note that any transport costs of the equipment to the distributor are borne by the user during the warranty. 1) Product Limited Warranty: Alfatron warrants that its products will be free from defects in materials and workmanship for seven years, which starts from the first day of purchase. -
Page 47: Warranty
ALF-DSP88-U 7. Warranty This limited warranty covers defects in materials and workmanship in this product. Should warranty service be required, proof of purchase must be presented to the Company. The serial number on the product must be clearly visible and not have been tampered with in any way whatsoever. - Page 48 ALF-DSP88-U The Company will, at its sole option, provide one of the following three remedies to whatever 1.10 extent it shall deem necessary to satisfy a proper claim under this limited warranty: 1.10.1 Elect to repair or facilitate the repair of any defective parts within a reasonable period of time, free of any charge for the necessary parts and labor to complete the repair and restore this product to its proper operating condition.;...
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