Description

AX Center was born to sit in a rack right next to you in the studio, in your portable rig – or maybe even on your desktop. It’s the audio interface that dreams are made of, as it unites the distinguished audio quality of pristine Digital Audio Denmark AD & DA conversion with the renowned transparency and musicality of the DAD mic preamps. It’s all about capturing the source truthfully and get it into your DAW exactly as it is.

But that’s only the beginning of this journey through the various applications covered by AX Center. On the analog side, two XLR / 1/4″ Jack combo connectors on the front for connecting microphones and instruments, you can add two 8 ch. mic/line A/D cards for 16 mic inputs and you have the perfect interface for a small studio or location recording. Or add one 8 ch. D/A card for an additional 8 analog outputs and you have the perfect interface for mixing in 7.1.4 ATMOS format. 

With one 8 ch. line A/D card and one 8 ch. D/A card, you have the perfect mastering converter. And all along you have two headphone connections where all sources in the system can be easily monitored.

Included on the rear panel are a host of connectivity, covering Thunderbolt, Dante AoIP, MADI, ADAT, S/PDIF and Word Clock. In total – and fully expanded – you can max out AX Center with a staggering 984 input and output channels.

Moving on, AX Center offers a 984×984 audio-routing matrix that allows you to route any input to any output, or even duplicate any input and send to multiple outputs simultaneously. As part of the routing and summing engine, you also get access to DAD’s flexible Pro|Mon monitor control solution with a 512×64 channel summing engine.

Finally, AX Center also comes with an onboard DSP-processing engine, capable of handling up to 128 channels with a total of 1024 EQ filters. Simply perfect for speaker correction even at large immersive sound stages with tons of monitors in play.

Adding all of these things together, the result is a studio miracle that ensures your precious audio is converted from analog to digital completely true to its natural expression, seamlessly routed and summed with utmost precision, and finally it passes through a world-class D/A stage before reaching your speakers and ultimately your ears – the goal being that you can trust what you hear from capturing the source to the final round of mastering.

OVERVIEW

• 2 Ch. microphone or instrument input
• Dual stereo headphone output
• Dual stereo monitor outputs
• A/D, D/A and D/D Converter with sample rates from 44,1 to 384 kHz and DSD
• Up to 984 Input and Output Channels
• Router and Monitoring Interface  
• Thunderbolt 3 I/O (256 Ch.)
• Dante AoIP I/O (256 Ch.)
• MADI I/O (64 ch.)
• ADAT I/O (16 Ch.) / SPDIF (2 ch.)
• 2 Slots for Optional Multi-Format DAD I/O Cards
• 512×64 Ch. Pro|Mon Summing and Speaker 1024 ch. EQ Processing

FEATURES

• Thunderbolt 3 interface, with 256 Bidirectional Channels at 48 & 96 kHz, 128 channels at 192 kHz and 64 channels at 384 kHz
• Interchangeable Thunderbolt 3 main and expansion port w. 15W power for ancillary equipment
• Audio Drivers for macOS and Windows
• MADI interface on BNC connectors with 64 Bidirectional Channels at 48kHz, 32 channels at 96kHz, 16 channels at 192 kHz and 8 channels at 384 kHz
• Dual ADAT interface on TosLink Light pipes with 16 Bidirectional Channels at 48kHz, 8 channels at 96kHz, and 4 channels at 192 kHz. Configurable also as 2 Ch. S/PDIF input
• DANTE AoIP interface via Ethernet with 256 Bidirectional Channels at 48 and 96kHz, 128 channels at 192 kHz.
• Module Slot for optional dual Madi module via 2 x SFP (LC Fiber or HD/BNC Coax) connectors with 128 Bidirectional Channels at 48kHz, 64 channels at 96kHz, 32 channels at 192 kHz and 16 channels at 384 kHz 
• Two card slots available for DAD I/O Expansion Cards
• Word Clock I/O, and Video Black and Burst input on BNC connectors
• 128 channels speaker processing with a total of 1024 filters and delay
• Summing Processor 64 Output / 512 Input Busses
• Internal Router: 4096 x 4096
• 32bit Floating Point Processing
• DADman control software for macOS and Windows connecting via Ethernet or Thunderbolt 
• Pro|Mon monitor control functionality and integration for Avid Eucon Enabled Devices via DADman
• 19” Rack Unit 1U Height

AUDIO DRIVER SUPPORT FOR macOS

• Core Audio Thunder|Core Audio Driver
• Compatible with Intel and Apple Silicon (M1) processors, as well as Big Sur macOS and forward
• Core Audio Aggregates for More Applications I/O Control Connection for DADman
• Control Connection for DADman

AUDIO DRIVER SUPPORT FOR WINDOWS 

• ASIO Thunder|Core Audio Driver
• Compatible with Windows 10 and forward
• One Application Can Connect to the Asio Driver
• Control Connection for DADman