humble opinions on Xite hardware

The Sonic Core XITE hardware platform for Scope

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siriusbliss
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humble opinions on Xite hardware

Post by siriusbliss »

Just some observations re: hardware quality of Xite.

First, it's readily apparent that a lot of attention was given to the overall design quality. After nearly 30 years in hardware engineering, I can tell that Xite is a top-notch device.

The routing on the little PCI-e interface card shows true matched differential pairs routed off the finger edge-connector, (which meets PCI-e layout spec. per IEEE here in the US at least).

There's a tag over the edge of the cover to prevent breaking the seal, and breaking the warrantee, which is good design practice.

If I COULD open the unit and take a look at the PCB, I'd obviously see all the DSP's, but what would be more obvious would be probably a 24-layer PCB with about 150,000 signal routes (or more) - all matched and tuned, and ground isolated for high-speed transmission. I can presume the A/D front-end routing to be done per spec., which is NOT trivial for such configurations.

All the connector I/O's feel solid, and have no play or weird connect behavior.

Anyways, just thought I'd share my opinions on the overall quality of Xite from a hardware standpoint.

Carry on,

Greg
Xite rig - ADK laptop - i7 975 3.33 GHz Quad w/HT 8meg cache /MDR3-4G/1066SODIMM / VD-GGTX280M nVidia GeForce GTX 280M w/1GB DDR3
cortone
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Re: humble opinions on Xite hardware

Post by cortone »

Greg,

That's so good to hear! Not a bad way to minimize debug and validation. As hard as the routing is, it's simplified by having so many layers.

Now I'm truly lustful!

Thanks for the report,
Cory
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erminardi
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Re: humble opinions on Xite hardware

Post by erminardi »

Damn german electronic ingenieers!!!
They are so fucking good!!!

:lol:

now I really hope for a final version of software 5.0 perfect as the hardware... ;)
4PC + Scope 5.0 + no more Xite + 2xScope Pro + 6xPulsarII + 2xLunaII + SDK + a lot of devices (Flexor III & Solaris 4.1 etc.) + Plugiator.
netguyjoel
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Re: humble opinions on Xite hardware

Post by netguyjoel »

Diabolicle...as usual, from this team! This is what I would expect from S|C..
all the nay sayers...jealous wannabees...eat your heart out...and all the whining and fussing over 5.0 seems silly 'bout now..you know mine is on the way...!!

BTW 5.0 PCI (I believe so far) is not the same as 5.0 for XITE...to interface the two might not happen, quite the way a lot of us might want...any thoughts? But if you have an XITE...besides Jimmy's multi 16 channel MIDI set up...routing and merging devices & DSPs between the two platforms, which are different, would IMHO require a whole lot more development to make this happen...???
siriusbliss wrote:Just some observations re: hardware quality of Xite.

First, it's readily apparent that a lot of attention was given to the overall design quality. After nearly 30 years in hardware engineering, I can tell that Xite is a top-notch device.

The routing on the little PCI-e interface card shows true matched differential pairs routed off the finger edge-connector, (which meets PCI-e layout spec. per IEEE here in the US at least).

There's a tag over the edge of the cover to prevent breaking the seal, and breaking the warrantee, which is good design practice.

If I COULD open the unit and take a look at the PCB, I'd obviously see all the DSP's, but what would be more obvious would be probably a 24-layer PCB with about 150,000 signal routes (or more) - all matched and tuned, and ground isolated for high-speed transmission. I can presume the A/D front-end routing to be done per spec., which is NOT trivial for such configurations.

All the connector I/O's feel solid, and have no play or weird connect behavior.

Anyways, just thought I'd share my opinions on the overall quality of Xite from a hardware standpoint.

Carry on,

Greg
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siriusbliss
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Re: humble opinions on Xite hardware

Post by siriusbliss »

Once SC gets the XTDM interface worked out between older PCI and Xite, THEN the game is on.

In the meantime, still waiting on my reg. key for Xite, and am in LA for a week on other projects, so...

Initially I'm assuming Scope PCI and Scope Xite cannot run at the same time - otherwise I'd at least use an ADAT port to link the two and move on.

We'll see...

But hardware-wise, yes very impressive.

Greg
Xite rig - ADK laptop - i7 975 3.33 GHz Quad w/HT 8meg cache /MDR3-4G/1066SODIMM / VD-GGTX280M nVidia GeForce GTX 280M w/1GB DDR3
netguyjoel
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Re: humble opinions on Xite hardware

Post by netguyjoel »

I thought XTDM was to be used for connecting more that one XITE?

Or is it for further IO expansion...32 nore channels...

BTW I think XITE do 32 now w/ Zlink (16 ch) & ADAT (16 ch) IO??
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garyb
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Re: humble opinions on Xite hardware

Post by garyb »

netguyjoel wrote:I thought XTDM was to be used for connecting more that one XITE?

Or is it for further IO expansion...32 nore channels...

BTW I think XITE do 32 now w/ Zlink (16 ch) & ADAT (16 ch) IO??

xtdm functions have not been established.

yes, 32+2(aes/ebu)+2 analog=36 i/o
netguyjoel
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Re: humble opinions on Xite hardware

Post by netguyjoel »

I was basing the assumption on TDMs use in the past...but that still was just a guess...

I would imagine, the evil geniuses at S|C probably will have several applications available for XTDM..Gary, I'm sure you'll know before me...if ya do will ya let us know.. :wink: thanx
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Neutron
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Re: humble opinions on Xite hardware

Post by Neutron »

24 layers? :o
and i thought motherboards with 8 were advanced :)
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