Audio Matrix Switch Advantage

[treyco]

Forgive me if this has been answered, but I couldn't find a post for this. What exactly is the advantage of the audio matrix switch in a system with two 8 zone amps? I am running this currently and things seem to be working OK. I don't need that many inputs and right now, we are just jumping the inputs from one amp to the other. In composer the same inputs on each amp is mapped to the same output og my HC-500 and MC.

If someone could just explain how the switcher would fit in to this picture, I would appreciate it.

[ILoveC4]

With two 8-zone amps you essentially have a 8:16 switch, which you have realized. With the matrix switch you would have a full 16:16 switch.

I think that is really about it. I actually prefer the amp because it has more finite volume controls, as well as a few other things.

[treyco]

The one thing that I have realized is that if I have an announcement agent play a sound file through all 16 zones, the 8 zones on amp 1 aren't in sync with the 8 zones on amp 2. There seems to be a lage between the two. Is there a way to fix this?

[ILoveC4]

The one thing that I have realized is that if I have an announcement agent play a sound file through all 16 zones, the 8 zones on amp 1 aren't in sync with the 8 zones on amp 2. There seems to be a lage between the two. Is there a way to fix this?

Yeah, buy a Matrix switch

[bebster]

Do you get a lag from other sources (eg music) or just announcements?

[jberger]

Having the matrix between the 2 amps also takes a load off of director and the way it has to manage audio paths. It's discussed in the large systems training.

[treyco]

I haven't had a chance to put something inline with the outputs of the HC500 and MC yet to test this theory, but it almost seems that when an announcement plays, the HC1000 streams two separate streams of the same file to the HC500 and has the streams go to separate outputs. A distinct output for each amp instead of recognizing that the input of the amps are chained and sending just one stream. I was hoping that Ryan or anyone else who new how the system handled this could give me a technical explanantion of what it was doing and whether spending the dough on the matrix switch would solve this problem.

[treyco]

OK...This is really bothering me. Just to be clear, I have a 16 zone system running on two 8 zone amps. the inputs of the amps are are chained together. I have an announcement agent that gets played through all zones (doorbell). My dealer was just here and we loaded up the gui for the internal matrix switch in one of the amps and initiated the agent while nothing else was playing on any of the zones. This created locks on three separate inputs. These inputs are the three outputs of the HC500. I really do not understand what is going on here. Is the HC500 having to decode three completely separate streams or is it sending a single stream to the three outputs. And I can see how someone might code the software to output two separate streams (one for each amp) since I don't currently have the matrix switch, but why would there need to be three? And why would different zones on the same amp be using different inputs? I'm reluctant to buy a matrix switch without understanding this because I don't know that it would provide any additional functionality. I appreciate any input.

[ILoveC4]

Well, what did your dealer say?

He gave you his opinion and explanation, right?

[dgbrown]

OK...This is really bothering me. Just to be clear, I have a 16 zone system running on two 8 zone amps. the inputs of the amps are are chained together. I have an announcement agent that gets played through all zones (doorbell). My dealer was just here and we loaded up the gui for the internal matrix switch in one of the amps and initiated the agent while nothing else was playing on any of the zones. This created locks on three separate inputs. These inputs are the three outputs of the HC500. I really do not understand what is going on here. Is the HC500 having to decode three completely separate streams or is it sending a single stream to the three outputs. And I can see how someone might code the software to output two separate streams (one for each amp) since I don't currently have the matrix switch, but why would there need to be three? And why would different zones on the same amp be using different inputs? I'm reluctant to buy a matrix switch without understanding this because I don't know that it would provide any additional functionality. I appreciate any input.

What exactly does that mean : "the inputs of the amps are are chained together" ?

Are you saying the the sources are Y'd to each of the amps ?

|------->Amp1 Input

DVD --|

|------->Amp2 Input

If this is the case, and the HC500 outputs are handled the same way then this may be the "source" of your problem (pun intended). The C4 recommends the HC output not be Y'd due to the dynamic nature of them.

If this is not the case, please provide some more detail.

[henniae]

I haven't had a chance to put something inline with the outputs of the HC500 and MC yet to test this theory, but it almost seems that when an announcement plays, the HC1000 streams two separate streams of the same file to the HC500 and has the streams go to separate outputs. A distinct output for each amp instead of recognizing that the input of the amps are chained and sending just one stream. I was hoping that Ryan or anyone else who new how the system handled this could give me a technical explanantion of what it was doing and whether spending the dough on the matrix switch would solve this problem.

What do you mean when you say the inputs of the amp are chained??? You have 2 separate amps and no matrix switch, so at the minimum you need to send at least two separate analog audio streams, one for each amp.

Do you have a separate analog out from the HC-500 going to each amp or is a single analog out split?

[treyco]

My dealer and I have discussed this. That is what we were doing today. He is not sure why it is acting this way either and is going to check on his dealer forum.

What we have is like this. Output 1 of the HC500 goes to Input 1 of Amp 1 and then jumps from there using these nifty little RCA splitters to Input 1 of Amp 2. Then Output 2 of HC500 goes to Input 2 of Amp 1 then jumps to Input 2 of Amp 2. Output 3 of HC500 goes to Input 3 of Amp1 then Jumps to Input 3 of Amp2. In Composer, he has outputs 1-3 of the HC500 going to Inputs 1-3 of both amps and it allows this and doesn't complain. And everything technically works, there is just this little lag between zones. And as I said before, I am not against buying the matrix switch, I just want to understand what the control4 system will do differently with it in the mix and why it would fix my problem. My dealer is trying to find out and I am sure he will, I just wanted to see if anyone else had run into this and/or could explain to me the logic behind the system and how it handles the inputs and outputs on decoded digital audio files.

[bebster]

FYI - C4 trains dealers that:

Due to the “Dynamic Audio” capability of the Control4 system, we require that you do not split the analog audio outputs from a Controller

But there is no technical explanation given as to what that means. I'd be curious to know as well.

They do seem to imply that it is ok to split analog inputs. Do you have analog inputs split and is there a lag with them too? Sounds like there shouldn't be.

[henniae]

Here is what I think might be happening. There is a simple test for this.

The HC-500 has to decode the audio stream and send each of the decoded streams out each of its analog audio outputs. Each of the analog outputs is a separate entity.

Think of it like this. You have 2 separate iPods playing the same song. Each of the iPods has to decode the digital stream and send it out the analog headphone (earbud) jack of the iPod. Because of this the two iPods might not be in perfect sync. With audio even a slight delay between two different sources will be perceivable to the human ear.

The HC-500 is similar in this example. It has to decode the digital stream for each of its analog outputs. The HC-500 has three separate Analog-to-Digital (AD)converters. The reason for this is that the HC-500 is designed to be able to send different audio streams out each output. The HC-500 does not have an analog audio matrix switch built in. It can't decode the stream once into analog and send it out the analog outputs. It has 3 separate decode circuits, one for each analog audio out. Without this design it could not play 3 different sources.

This is why the Matrix switch will solve the problem. The C4 matrix switch is an analog matrix switch. It takes a single analog input (from an HC-500 for example) and distributes it in analog to each of its' outputs.

As for the test to determine if the system is using all 3 analog outputs while your announcement is playing. Unplug the analog outputs 2 and 3 from the HC-500 and play your announcement. If some of the zones don't play audio you can be sure that the system is using multiple of the analog audio outs to play the announcement and that could be the cause of the delay as explained above.

[henniae]

So is this how it is hooked up

  Out1   |------->Amp1 Input 1
         |             |
HC-500 --|             | Amp1 Out 1              
         |             |
         |             |------->Amp2 Input 1
         |
  Out2   |------->Amp1 Input 2
         |             |
         |             | Amp2 Out 2              
         |             |
         |             |------->Amp2 Input 2
         |
  Out 3  |------->Amp1 Input 3
                       |
                       | Amp2 Out 3              
                       |
                       |------->Amp2 Input 3

[jberger]

Director is always trying to select the shortest audio path, when you Y the outputs, especially from the HC, you've made it much harder for Director to keep the path short.

The recommendation is to use a matrix audio switch in mulit amp applications to prevent the issues you are seeing. With the matrix in place, director simply passes a stream to the matrix, then uses the matrix and associated logic, to pass the signal to the correct amp inputs.

You need a matrix switch, otherwise it will always be problematic and a bit unstable.