RME HDSPe MADI FX 390-Channel Triple MADI PCI Express Audio Interface Card

RME HDSPe MADI FX: Triple-MADI Flagship for Massive Channel Counts

The RME HDSPe MADI FX is a 390-channel triple MADI PCI Express card audio interface, RME's flagship MADI card, carrying two optical and one coaxial MADI port on a single board. It aggregates 194 inputs and 196 outputs at 24-bit and up to 192 kHz, roughly three times the channel count of the previous MADI flagship. Beyond raw MADI, it adds an AES/EBU I/O, an analog monitor output, and four MIDI I/O through its extension board. For the largest broadcast plants, live-to-multitrack rigs, and install systems, this is the single card that turns one workstation into the heart of an enormous audio network.

Triple MADI: Two Optical Plus One Coaxial

The card provides three independent MADI ports, two optical and one coaxial BNC, each capable of the full 64 channels a MADI line carries at 48 kHz. Running three MADI streams from one card lets a single workstation talk to three separate stage boxes, converter stacks, or MADI routers at once without daisy-chaining. The two optical ports suit long, isolated fiber runs, while the coaxial BNC port is ideal for short, rugged machine-room patches. Combined, the three ports are what push the card to its 390-channel total and make it the aggregation hub for a very large system.

390 Channels and 4096-Channel TotalMix FX

With 194 inputs and 196 outputs available at once, the HDSPe MADI FX handles channel counts that would take several ordinary interfaces. All of that audio is managed by TotalMix FX, a 4096-channel hardware mixer that routes and monitors every signal on the card itself, keeping monitor latency effectively at zero. Unlike a plain router, TotalMix FX adds a full channel strip, per-channel EQ, dynamics, and send reverb and echo, so you can build finished monitor mixes in hardware. That on-board DSP is what separates this card from a simple MADI pipe and makes it a complete mixing and distribution engine.

AES/EBU, Analog Monitor Output and Four MIDI I/O

The MADI FX extension board and breakout cables add an AES/EBU digital I/O, a dedicated analog monitor output, and four MIDI inputs and outputs to the three MADI ports. The analog monitor output lets you feed a control-room speaker set or headphone amp directly from the card without a separate converter, useful in a machine-room or a compact monitoring setup. Four MIDI I/O provide ample machine control and MIDI-over-MADI remote for connected RME converters. These extras make the card a self-contained hub rather than a MADI-only interface.

Ultra-Low Latency Down to 32 Samples

The HDSPe MADI FX can run buffer sizes as small as 32 samples, giving round-trip latency low enough for tracking musicians who need to hear themselves in real time. Latency is the delay between a signal entering the system and returning to the performer, and smaller buffers shrink that delay at the cost of higher CPU load. Because TotalMix FX monitoring happens in hardware, you can keep the DAW buffer relaxed for plug-in headroom while still monitoring with near-zero delay. That balance of low latency and DSP power is exactly what high-channel live and studio work demands.

SteadyClock and Reference-Grade Reliability

All three MADI streams and the AES port lock with RME SteadyClock, which regenerates a clean internal clock and suppresses jitter arriving on any digital input. SyncCheck reports the lock status of every source so an engineer can confirm the whole system shares one reference, and a Word Clock I/O ties the card into a house clock. In broadcast and large-format live work, where dozens of devices must stay perfectly in sync, this clocking discipline is what prevents dropouts. It is the same reliability that makes RME a fixture in mission-critical facilities. This card is built for the highest-channel-count studio and broadcast hubs, aggregating multiple stage boxes and converters, driving large live-to-multitrack rigs, and handling complex routing installs that need real on-board DSP mixing.