Saturday 30 January 2016

XPand: A new product derived from the AMon Monitoring Interface

For the past two weeks I have been working on the software for the AMon (our new analog front end for the TMC-1). Whilst working on this we have received requests for a low cost way of adding Dolby Atmos or Auro 3D to an existing XMon system. Using the AMon hardware the XPand IU rack mount unit will add 8 channels to and existing XMon or AMon system. This will provide one input and one output with up to 16 channels.

Using XPand with the XMon and TMC-1
The XPand monitors the commands to the XMon, the dim, mute and gain follow the XMon commands.The XPand outputs are enabled when both main input and main output are selected.

Four  inputs are enough for the top speakers, by adding some switching to the XPand the remaining four inputs on XPand can be used to switch the rear speakers between 5.1 and 7.1 The TMC-1 has a user switch for this which also adjusts the surround output trim to compensate for any level change.
Using XPand to switch the surround speaker configuration between 5.1 and 7.1

When controlled by the TMC-1 individual speaker trims are available with individual speaker naming available from the USB port. When controlled by a ICON console the speaker trims can be adjusted via the USB port.

We are beta testing both the XPand and AMon in March provided the metalwork arrives on time.