Cascaded EWS88MT cards

[Bladefish]

I have a DAW with 2 Terratec EWS88MT cards cascaded (giving me 16 inputs at once), and Sonar. I've decided to use the Digital Mixer to monitor instead of Sonar, which I've disabled input monitoring. I've been trying to figure out how to monitor all 16 channels to a single output. I tried to assign the S\PDIF out of the slave to Digital Mixer, then patched it to the S\PDIF in of the master (via an S\PDIF cable). But I could not hear it. The only way that I can get it to work is to take the outs 1&2 of the slave to the ins 7&8 of the master. But that reduces my available inputs to 14, which I'm prepared to accept. But, if I can get all 16 at once, I should be able to.
If this is at all possible, someone please help me.
Thanks for any help.

[Werner_O]

'Normally' it should be possible to route the Dig-Out of EWS88-1 to Dig-In of EWS88-2.

Perhaps you need to make other clock-settings for the Dig-In of EWS88-2, i.e. 'Clock internal'. Try different settings until it works.
Unfortunately I don't have own experiences with cascaded EWS88 sound cards, so I cannot give you any further hints.

Regards,
Werner

[Werner_O]

Hello 'Bladefish',

I've posted your problem to the German Terratec support and got he following answer (after 1 hour!):

1. Please disconnect the internal Sync cable.
You cannot sync both cards internal and external simultaneously.
Additional your 'Monitoring EWS88' should be the 'Master'.

2. If you still have problems:
Please move the sliders 'SPDIF-Out' and 'SPDIF-In' of both cards in the EWS88-Controlpanel - that's no joke!!!!!
Now it should work.

(Michael Henneke - Technical support Terratec Germany)

Additional note from me (Werner):
If you don't succeed, you should try the following settings too:
1. Switch the 'Sending EWS88' to 'Master'.
2. Switch the 'Recieving EWS88' to 'Slave - Sync external'.

PLEASE let me know, if you could solve your problems and which set-up was the right one!

Regards,
Werner

[Bladefish]

First off, I don't even have them anymore. But I did solve the problem. I took the S/PDIF out of the master into the S/PDIF in of the slave, and used the slave to master. Even Terratec support couldn't give me an answer (they said I couldn't do it). When I told them how I did it, then they said, "Oh yes, that will work". That's terrible support.
Thanks