Split AR2412 signal

[Tillaeus]

Is it possible to split the signal from an AR2412 to two boards? Like if use a SQ5 for FOH and a QU-16 for monitors, then we could connect everything to the AR2412 and feed both boards without the need of a splitter before the 2412.

[KeithJ A&H]

@Tillaeus

It’s not possible to connect two consoles directly to the AR2412 as the AR2412 is used to expand (or provide remote I/O) for a single console.
However, you can expand the SQ using the AR2412 and then use SQ Tie Lines to pass signals directly between the Qu and the AR2412.
This is usually referred to as a digital split.

It would require an SLink card in the SQ, and two cables to stage/Mons, one for the Qu and one for the AR.
You would also need to sync the SQ to the Qu as the Qu cannot sync to an external clock source (though note that the SQ continues to process at 96kHz always).
The SQ would have preamp control, but other than that, the signals reaching the Qu would arrive unaffected/unprocessed.

Cheers,
Keith.

[Tillaeus]

Ah, seems like a lot of job. I had some hopes that I just could connect everything to the AR2412 and then split the cat5 to two different boards.

[KeithJ A&H]

@Tillaeus

A&H protocol expanders are layer 2, so they have very low latency and are very much plug-n-play with all firmware updates and clock sync taken care of for you.
This also means that when you connect one up, it’s an extension of the console you connect to rather than another device on a network (as you might imagine).
So if you could somehow connect two consoles to one AR2412, it wouldn’t know which one it was connected to, which preamp messaging to follow, what firmware it should be running, which clock source to use…

As an aside, the only expanders we have that don’t behave this way are those in the DT range. These have their own addresses on a Dante network, so they are like separate devices that can be connected and patched to any other Dante enabled equipment – including multiple consoles.

Thanks,
Keith.

[Tillaeus]

Ah, that makes sense though. We have an qu-16 at the moment but the plan is to either get a SQ5 for FOH or a QU-SB or qu-pac for monitors and run the qu-16 for FOH. I guess that we just go with a splitter then. 😅

Thanks for your help!

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