A-Mon Stereo Down Mix Revisited

Stereo Down Mix

The A-Mon Stereo Down Mix feature is used to monitor 7.1 and 5.1 on a Stereo system or to check how a 5.1 or 7.1 mix will sound in stereo. The A-Mon design allows for variable ratios but they are currently fixed as follows:

When using the Down Mix I realised that because the Solo and Mute were implemented on the outputs it is only possible to Mute/Solo Left or Right total when Down Mix is enabled. To overcome this I re-wrote the firmware on both the TMC-1 and A-Mon so that when Down Mix is enabled the Solo and Mute control the inputs instead of the outputs. 

Conns

The drawback switching solo and mute on the inputs is that this will also change the stereo feed to the cue sends. 

Metering

Stereo display

A new stereo display enabled when Stereo is selected or by menu choice shows Left, Right, Studio L/S feed and Headphone cue outputs.

External Metering

The 5.1 output may now be defined as a Meter output with level adjustment and channel trim.

XPand Metering

Whilst modifying the TMC-1 and A-Mon I also looked at metering from the XPand, whilst not possible when using the XPand with XMon, I have now implemented XPand Metering when using the XPand with A-Mon.

The meters on the TMC-1 will switch from A-Mon to XPand when the Mute or Solo keys are assigned to the XPand Outputs (Repeated depressions of the Mute and Solo keys will switch between speaker banks).  

  

Next .... 5.1 Down Mix

The current 5.1 key is used to switch the the rear speakers to the side signal when listening to 5.1 material on a 7.1 system. My next task is to add a 5.1 Down-Mix key that will monitor 7.1 on a 5.1 system, this will be more flexible than the current Menu setting.