Axiom Home Page Forums AxiomAir Discussion AxiomAir General Discussion Multicast: Bug, HW, or User Error?

Coming up to speed on using the transformer.

Using a USB stick I can get one transformer to connect and play what another is playing.
But if I use the analog input it does not work.

User error or something else?

You'd expect it to do multi-target playback off the analog input but I'm not sure that it does.

Just to check if it might be a hardware problem I swapped in another transformer and had the same issue ...
Andrew/Ian, can you give us a clue here ...

I would have been pretty surprised if you could multiroom the analog. I don’t believe you can do it with the optical either.

I’m not saying it’s impossible but my sense is that a direct connect signal is touched as little as possible. In order to make multiroom available you’d have to route the signals through a lot more hoops as opposed to shortest/simplest path.

You can do both but it is more engineering including more hardware resources.

The analog can be routed directly through the amps to the speakers. And it can concurrently be sampled and piped over wi-fi to other Axiom target machines.

IF the transformers primary function is to be a preamp I’d agree that if you can have only one or the other then the direct connection is best. But i see the preamp use case as secondary. It just does not have the number of inputs needed to make it viable in that market (Axiom knows and markets it this way). I do see it as a step toward a consumer preamp though and it’s possible to switch between a direct connection and synced. Note: You can not have both at the Same time as you need to time align the audio with the other systems to sync it. This require you to delay the signal at the source so it come out at the same time as the others.

IMO the transformers primary use is to stream media from the net, digital storage device, and to/from another systems. A major function of that is to sync all the audio so it plays at the same time. In order to do that one has to covert the analog in to digital. On the system that’s playing, the audio needs to be routed through the Transformer.

To use my setup as an example: The output of the transformer runs into my prepro’s aux port which is set to play on my main system in the family room. The input of the the transformer is connected to the Zone2 output which is set to phono so I can play an album. I have another transformer synced to the first which plays throughout the whole house. I should be able to leave the family room and have seamlessly synced music (off my turntable) as I walk though the house.

I have two transformers and an AxiomAir and would certainly benefit from being able to stream all inputs across multiple devices. No question there!

I wonder how difficult it would be to implement?

It needs a decent a/d and software. The hardware is fairly straight forward. There probably is a open source plug-in for the software end. If not then the amount of work is highly dependent on the programers knowledge of the system (hw & sw) and ability to ramp up on any unknowns.

It could be that that the transformer does this and it's broke or I'm not using it correctly (putting it in the best light as I can, the UI/UX is IMO in need of improvement). It could be that the hardware is there but the sw is a work in progress or it might not be part of the design. The last being a big oversight because there's some big functionality being left on the table: Not only the stated functionality but desirable future functionality like converting your records and tapes to a digital format.

Think transformer 2.0 in that case and/or a consumer type stereo preamp with more inputs like the Emotive BasX PT-100 but with air functionality.

We are currently working on Version 3 of the software. It is another big update that includes a completely new library system and multi-room of everything. Even your turntable will be able to be played all over the house.

Nice to know it's only software ...
Thanks