No Audio, but isolating channels show meters

[JakeParticipant]

Hey Everybody,

We’ve recently inherited a strange issue.

We aren’t getting any multi-channel audio out of our ME-1 units. We do se meters though.

In my troubleshooting-
The Aux input only works when using a dedicated power and is disconnected from the ME-U.
The Onboard Ambient mic works.
Firmware for ME-1 and ME-U are both up to date.

My setup is
Waves LV1-
Heartech WSG to Dante Bridge
ME-U + Allen and Heath Dante card
ME-1

Dante Channels are patched in correctly. I’m getting signal on other Dante units.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

[ahjeffModerator]

Hi Jake

The Aux input will work when there is no Cat5 connection, this is normal. If you are seeing metering but no audio when connected to the ME-U, this indicates that the ME-1 unit audio PLL is not locked, so there could be a clocking problem somewhere in the system.

If you go into the ME-U web setup page, is it showing a tick next to “Source Clock Sync”? My expectation is that it is not. I had a look at the WSG/Dante bridge, and there are lots of valid clocking configurations depending on what the rest of your system is doing. I can’t be sure, but as a guide, the ME-U Dante card should probably not be set to ‘Sync to External’ or ‘Preferred Primary Master’.

Without knowing about your whole system, I can’t give a definitive answer, but I think “make sure your Dante/Waves clocking is all correct” is a good place to start here.

Hope this helps.

– Jeff, A&H

[JakeParticipant]

Hey Jeff,

Thanks for your quick response!
We did a bit of troubleshooting yesterday and found the clock sync looked good. Our dante settings looked good.

The only dante device that was set to master and sync to external was our WSG/Heartech bridge.
We’re running Dante in default Unicast, but we’re only sending out to 2 dante devices, Channels are sent 1 to 1 (1-40 are sent to the ME-U, 41-64 are sent to our DSP)

Is it possible that the problem is with our Network switch? Is compatibility an issue with the ME-U?

We are using the NETGEAR GS108 V4 8-Port Switch.

I’m baffled by this issue. I’m running out of tricks and tips to continue troubleshooting. Thanks!

[ahjeffModerator]

Hi Jake

I wouldn’t have thought that a simple Ethernet switch like that would cause problems with the Dante network. The ME-U itself doesn’t know anything about Dante, it’s just an option card that feeds the ME-U with audio signals, so there shouldn’t be any compatibility issues in that respect.

Were you able to confirm that the ME-U itself thinks that it has audio clock sync? If the ME-U is not locked, the ME-1s won’t be either. Do you know exactly what clock rate your Waves/Dante network is running at? The ME-U supports 48.0 kHz +/- 100 ppm, or 44.1 kHz +/- 100 ppm.

Do you have a Dante Virtual Soundcard (DVS) setup? I wonder if it’s worth testing just the Dante side of things by feeding the ME-U directly from a PC running DVS. In this case you would set the ME-U Dante card to Preferred Primary Master, with Sync to External turned off.

If this doesn’t get you any further forward, it might be worth opening a tech support ticket, including a link to this forum thread.

Hope this helps

– Jeff, A&H

[JakeParticipant]

Ok,

So I tried running Dante Virtual Soundcard direct into the Allen and Heath and no audio was detected at all. No meters, no audio.

Could it be an iP settings issue?

I did notice that the a&h Dante card was pulling 59mb per second of data. That seems like a lot to me, maybe it’s a clue but maybe I’m wrong.

I’ve filled out an A&H support request.

-JG

[JakeParticipant]

So clock sync looked good.

I reset the pinhole network switch to factory defaults.
I went through Dante to check everything.
All channels are sent appropriately within Dante and within the LV1.

After a couple days I came back, I checked the me-1.

There was a bit of popping and noise.

I powered off the Heartech WSG to Dante bridge.
I powered it on.

Audio and meters are both back online.

I’ll keep an eye on it, and let you know if anything changes.

Thanks!

[JakeParticipant]

Someone reached out to me privately to check up on this. I figured I’d post an update.

The issues to my knowledge have not been present since that initial setup. The devices are playing solidly every week.
Outside of checking all the standard stuff on waves and dante routing, clock source, and physical cabling the unfortunate truth is that there is nothing outside of the power-cycle for us that would have affected it.
I wish that I had a more solid answer on how to sort through this, and regretfully I am no longer am in the area where this setup is in use.

Have you reached out to Heartech?
We were considering Getting the Waves card for the ME-U instead of the Dante card if the issues were to have persisted.

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