CW Pulsar-2 questions

[Bud Weiser]

Hello !
I got some Pulsar-2 cards and 3 "plus" cable whips from former "mastering" or "broadcast",- not sure though.
I know, there was some explanation and a pic about difference of unbalanced "Classic20" and balanced "Plus" plates,- but I cannot find.

4 cards came as "CM Pro" (Cutmaster) cards while 2 of these came w/ "Cutmaster Pro" keys in addition to the rudimentary SCOPE 4.5 keys for each of the cards.
So, I think, the CM Pro cards will accept the "Plus" cable whips.

But,- I´m unable recognizing any difference of the plates w/o disassembling and 1 of the cards is a "non Cutmaster Pro" Pulsar-2.

It now depends on how to group these cards for usage in 2 different machines and to find out what the plate of the standard (?) Pulsar-2 is.

I might be willing to disassemble the plate from this card and look for the difference.
I guess it was some add. IC making balanced outputs on XLR connectors and AES/EBU possible,- but can´t remember where to look for on the plate.
I´d like to avoid disassembling more plates for just only a, possibly unnecessary,, comparison vs getting the info here.

When I look at all the plates of the different 5 cards "as they are" (assembled),- I don´t recognize any difference at all,- but I´m not sure about if there might be any difference I´ll only recognize when plate(s) is/are disassembled and I´m not sure about what happens when I´d try to use a "Plus" cable whip on a "imaginary" Classic20 plate or a Classic20 whip w/ any "Plus" plate.

Do I have to fear damage,- or just only lose "balancing" and AES/EBU vs SPDIF ?

thx ...



Bud

[valis]

I have a mixture of Plus & Classic i/o cards here. The whips are not interchangeable, the Plus is a different signalling level entirely due to the circuitry on the daughterboard. For the record, +4 dBu is originally designed to drive .775 volts at nominal (0dB) into a 600 ohm load, which equals 1.23V @ +4 dBu. While -10 dBV is .316 volt at the reference for that standard (-10 dBV, and the impedance load often approaches 1000 ohm). That isn't to say direct connection between these two standards can't be done, but there's often a tonal change (depending on which direction the impedance changes on the input side, it might be 'thinner' or 'more saturated' especially approaching the top input levels for that input).

The daughterboards ARE interchangeable, I had GaryB confirm that in my case a few weeks ago as I have a failing card and have to swap things around soon. So keep the whip with the appropriate daughterboard, and swap those around as needed.

[Bud Weiser]

Thx for the details, Valis !

And ... I´ve found the thread now ...

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=36367

needed some time,- sorry.




Bud