What is the bit rate for ADAT?

Ricardo · Post by **Ricardo** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 8:34 am

I just read the thread that Ashkenazy posted on ADAT. Will ADAT, such as A16, relay 16,24 &/or 32 bit info? Someone told me it was 16 bit only, so I never bothered using it. The truth please anyone?

aMo · Post by **aMo** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 8:50 am

ADAT is originally 16 bit at 48Khz with 8channels for each optical cable.
It then was upgraded to 24 bit 48Khz.
With the new S-MUX standard, you get 24 bit at 96Khz, but with only 4 channels for each optical cable.

I think the Old A16 uses only the original ADAT standard (16/48), but the new A16 Ultra, can use all the mentioned standards.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: aMo on 2003-07-24 09:53 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: aMo on 2003-07-24 09:53 ]</font>

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Thu Jul 24, 2003 9:54 am

Ricardo, the old A16 has 18-bit converters (afaik) which results in 16 bits finally used, as aMo already wrote.
Anyway, those converters are still considered very good, which is more related to the fidelity of the conversion process, but to the bit deepth.
A cheap 24-bit 'soundcard' converter may actually sound worse than those oldies.
The A16 ultra uses state of the art 24-bit converters and obviously everyone is totally happy with it

cheers, Tom