The SMC is the industry standard for 5.1 surround monitoring. It combines analogue 6-channel volume control with speaker management for 5.1 surround and stereo sources. Two 5.1 and two stereo input sources can be connected to the SMC. This is important because in monitoring, two productions are always compared with each other. The DB25 input is used to connect the DAW balanced. In output routing, channels 1-6 should be selected for 5.1 mixing and 7/8 for stereo mixing. DVDs are often played back on standard DVD or Blu-Ray players for comparison purposes. Their consumer nominal level of -10dBV, which corresponds to a level difference of 7.8dB to the 0dBu studio level, is compensated in the SMC to make loudness comparable. The front and rear stereo pair can each be switched to mono. Mute All is important when the DAW is sending full-scale audio garbage due to a problem. To protect the speakers and your hearing you can quickly mute here. Each loudspeaker can also be switched on/off individually. The balanced inputs are passively looped through to the Slave Out DB25 socket. Here, for example, a multi-channel metering can be connected. The speaker outputs are balanced with TRS jacks. If mono jack plugs (TS) are used, the signal is automatically unbalanced.
