Sound Performance Lab MMC2 - Manual (Page 4)

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The MMC 2 multichannel mastering console completes the range of SPL 120 V
mastering consoles. Housed in a 19”/11U rack mount chassis the MMC 2
features the same unique 120 volts rails like the MMC 1 and DMC dual-channel
mastering console to achieve the optimum audio performance.
The purpose of the development was the creation of mastering consoles
that would be superior in audio quality to all known and foreseeable audio
formats, whether analog or digital. Such consoles would provide both for
an unaltered reproduction of the sonic quality of high resolution playback
formats like SACD and in the process, remain a safe capital investment for
many years.
The MMC 2 is conceived as the center of a mastering environment to provide
speaker management, sources and returns connectivity, input and output
trimming, pure analog multichannel master fader and monitor level setting.
As an option, the MMC 2 can be supplemented with the SPL MasterBay to
provide an automated 8 x 8 channel insert routing of external processors.
Digital audio formats have undergone continuous development and change
and will continue to do so. With the degree of incompatibility created by the
“format war” between PCM and DSD, the need for a technology that is supe-
rior in dynamic range, headroom and sound quality to either or any other such
format is obvious – and the only solution is discrete analog technology in its
most advanced implementation.
Moreover additional prerequisites speak for the employment of high-perform-
ance analog technology:
The number of necessary AD/DA conversions should be reduced to a minimum.
With the MMC 2, digital sources can be connected to a digital router, which
outputs the selected source through the preferred DA converter. This ensures
that the sound quality remains comparable and is not affected by converter
differences.
High quality analog outboard processing consistently proves itself superior
to digital processing. The analog concept allows for problem-free integration
of such analog processors.
Monitors and power amplifi ers are almost exclusively analog in design. Yet
another converter at this point in the chain only degrades monitoring signal
paths. Furthermore, DSD signals cannot be monitored on a digital monitoring
that operates in PCM.
Technology
SPL’s new SUPRA operation amplifi ers are used throughout the MMC 2’s
design. They perform at an industry benchmark of 120 volts and their devel-
opment alone took four years. The SPL SUPRA op amp achieves a signal-to-
noise ratio of 116 dB with a headroom of 34 dB. The dynamic range amounts
to 150 dB with a frequency bandwidth of 200 kHz.
With such specifi cations, the MMC 2 rides comfortably beyond the require-
ments of either the current maximum 24 bit/192kHz PCM or 1 bit/256 fs
DSD formats, while a digital technology in which the MMC 2 could become a
“bottle neck” is not foreseeable.
Fade In
Master Fader