Recording and Production in the News

Prism Sound Orpheus achieves sales successes prior to launch

Cambridge, UK, September 2007 Prism Sound's new FireWire computer recording interface Orpheus is set to reach market in November, but already worldwide interest in the interface has prompted healthy international pre-sales over the Summer period. Amongst the many pre-orders they have received in Europe, Prism Sound's French distributor Jukebox and their Italian distributor Funky Junk have each ordered 20 units. Multiple orders have also been received at Prism Sound's US office from a variety of retailers in North America, including Michigan's Vintage King (5 units), San Francisco's Cutting Edge (5 units), Calistro Music in Connecticut (2 units), and Sonotechnique in Canada (3 units).

Orpheus

"Naturally, we're delighted to have achieved this level of pre-sales on a product that isn't released yet," comments Prism Sound Sales Manager Jody Thorne. "We've done our best over the years to release products that don't compromise on quality in any way, and we'd like to think that this healthy level of interest in Orpheus reflects the reputation that we've built up. Orpheus continues that tradition, offering the high quality you'd expect from a Prism product, but at a price that brings it within reach of the independent producer/project studio market. We look forward to showing more people what Orpheus is capable of at the AES show."

Orpheus, named after the mythological Greek musician whose beautiful songs charmed wild animals, will offer many of the features of Prism Sound's top-of-the-range ADA-8XR converters, but at a price that brings it within the reach of the project studio recording market. With eight analogue inputs, an eight-channel ADAT optical digital input and stereo digital input, the Orpheus can interface a maximum of 18 simultaneous input sources to connected Mac- or PC-based DAWs via FireWire. In addition to the FireWire connection, audio may be output via eight analogue output jacks, allowing the Orpheus to act as a surround monitor controller in addition to its interfacing duties. Microphone and headphone preamps are built in, as is a digital mixer, synchronous sample-rate conversion and noise shaping for 16-bit, 44.1kHz CD mastering. Control of all the main functions and parameters is handled via an included cross-platform control application.

Orpheus was launched at Frankfurt's Musikmesse this Spring, and production prototypes will be on display at this month's AES show in New York. Since the launch of the product, feedback from potential customers has led to Orpheus's specification being slightly upgraded - the stereo digital S/PDIF input and output is now switchable to receive and output AES-EBU audio.

You can find Prism Sound and the Orpheus on Stand 712 throughout the AES show in New York.