You'll see a lot of industry firsts at AES, and this year was no exception. Sure there was the big hullabaloo about PT9 being the first stand-alone version of the DAW, but no less cool were the firsts at the Millennia Music & media Systems. Founder John La Grou was present showing off his AD-596. Not only is it the first digital module for 500-series racks, but it's the smallest 8-channel analog-to-digital converter ever produced.

Gino Robair spoke with John about the concept behind the Millennia Media AD-596 at the show and discovered another first: the AD-596 marks the first time Millennia has shown off a product at an AES show after it was already shipping! Hey, congrats!