Search the Community

Here's a bit of a mystery that I can't seem to get a clear answer on. I have both a Fostex FM-4 and FM-3 (which, except for the odd meters, are great; I've a bit of a write-up on them here). However, I'm perplexed about the availability of AES out on the units. Down in the innards, with the lid off, there is what looks like a connection for either some kind of daughter card or digital out connection (see image). There is also what looks like already existing circuitry down below that. I can find scarce information on the units at all online but there are a couple mentions in press releases as they were introduced that they would have AES out. In the block diagram from the manual, there is 'digital out option' labeled in the signal path. I contacted Fostex but received a cryptic reply that this was 'not enabled' in the end. Does anyone know if all the circuitry is in place and there is a way to enable this (I'm assuming with some manner of physical modification as there aren't any apparent switches or menu items)? Also, if so, I'm feeding into a 744T; is it just a 2 channel AES from the main bus or would there be a 4x2 channel AES split so I could feed 4 channel direct out to the SD unit over two AES outputs?