d8b Forum

hi all, can anyone bullet point the diffrence between the mackie OPT-8 and the Apogee DIO-8 cards ?
Is the adat opt connection better on one than the other ? etc

From the database:

DIO8 Cards: If you have old DIO8 cards, you should check their EPROMs to insure that they are 24-bit. The DIO8s first shipped with 16-bit EPROMs. If the EPROM says "ver 2" or above then it is 24-bit. Mackie will ship you 24-bit EPROMs if you need them. To date, they do not charge for the EPROMs, but that may change and they may charge you for shipping. If you purchased a used d8b with DIO8 cards installed, or purchased some used DIO8 cards, you should check to make sure the EPROMs are up to date. All you have to do is remove the cards and look at the paper label on the EPROMs. Who knows how long they were on the shelf before they found their way to you, or if the party you purchased your board from performed any upgrades.

So, with that info. there should not be a difference. I used the DIO.8 with great success.

I don't recall off hand, but I think there was also an issue, where the DIO8 would have the phase reversed in the ALT I/O slots, but I'm not sure if that was also just with the old firmware, or any firmware.

So, IMO, if you don't want to remember what to look out for with potential issues with the ADAT ports, and you don't need the TDIF connectors, IMO, going with an OPT8 card is the safer choice (i.e. no "not 24 bit" issues and no potential phase reverse issues in certain card slots).

Y-my-R wrote:I don't recall off hand, but I think there was also an issue, where the DIO8 would have the phase reversed in the ALT I/O slots, but I'm not sure if that was also just with the old firmware, or any firmware.

So, IMO, if you don't want to remember what to look out for with potential issues with the ADAT ports, and you don't need the TDIF connectors, IMO, going with an OPT8 card is the safer choice (i.e. no "not 24 bit" issues and no potential phase reverse issues in certain card slots).

Yea...I sort of remember that. It never seemed to be an issue for me when I was running the DIO.8 cards in my rig. Running all of the same card, doubt you would have an issue. The OPT.8 is cheaper...or was back in the day. Seems to me that it wasn't limited to just Alt I/O slot either, it was a design of the card itself and as I sort of recall, a hold over of how the original black face ADATs dealt light pipe. It did some weird phase flip flop in and out...or maybe I am dreaming all of this up, been too many years since I was super deep in the d8b folklore.

To add to that, if I understand your question, the OPT 8 cards are optical in and out. The DIO 8 are digital db25 in and out.

RJH_MUSIC wrote:To add to that, if I understand your question, the OPT 8 cards are optical in and out. The DIO 8 are digital db25 in and out.

The DIO.8 have both Adat light pipe I/O as well as TDIF 25 pin.

Cheers guys, is this right ?
old V1 eprom 16bit or it it just a sticker that says "V1"


new V2.1 eprom 24 bit

I think you got it right, Funk!

The ones that say 2.1 are definitely the 24-bit capable cards.

The "M08_18C." one, most likely is a V1 that only does 16-bit, yes. I have one such card as well, and always assumed that that's what it is, and don't use it (it's in one of my spares).

...and to clarify, there's a number of "digital DB25" formats out there. The DB25s on the DIO8 cards, are TDIF ports. That's 8 channels of digital audio in TASCAM format (it's dead... no new devices with that technology came out in at least 10 years or so).

Just saying, because some other cards for the D8B, also have DB25 connectors on it, that use a different format (e.g. 8x AES/EBU), and there's also an analog I/O card with two DB25 connectors on it. I noticed that some people on here get confused about this, assuming they can connect any DB25 to another DB25, but that is not the case. Gotta be careful "what kind" of DB25 port that is... (TDIF on the DIO8)