The AMS8-1AA/110 is a compact one rack-unit aural and visual monitor designed to handle 110 Ohm, balanced AES and analog audio signals. Eight PPM/VU LED bar-graphs display signal activity, while a sophisticated multi-speaker system allows operators to listen, with great clarity, to the signal being monitored. The AMS8-1AA/110 has four unbalanced digital audio inputs and four stereo analog inputs on pluggable screw terminals. An internal switcher allows the operator to toggle between the AES and analog inputs. A reference input for DARS (110 Ohm, balanced) is provided on a pluggable screw terminal connector. AES re-clocked copies of the four input signals are provided on the rear panel on pluggable screw terminal connectors and analog stereo copies are provided on a 25 pin D connector. The unit provides an analog stereo output that is a copy of the signal being fed to the integral speaker system. This stereo output may be configured to follow the front panel speaker level control or to be a fixed line level output. The AMS8-1AA/110 may be field configured to suit the monitoring needs of a particular operation or location, using a combination of the eight segment LED dot-matrix readout, the eight lighted pushbuttons and the two rotary shaft encoders with integral pushbutton switches. Ward-Beck has developed an intuitive scheme to ease programming of the AMS8-1AA/110. Features that can be readily programmed to assist in monitoring include: Creating preset monitoring configuration, creating an infinitely variable proportional stereo mix-down of multiple audio channels, providing global control for monitoring. The SERIAL COMM DB9 connector includes GPI and GPO inputs that may be used for tally and external control functions.