Thread: MOTU conversion/audio quality vs APOGEE & RME

What are you using for monitors out of curiosity? I am using pretty low end monitors. I am using KRK and Yamaha Hs-50's. I use ARC and love that I get laughed at for it. I've tried Focal, Genelec, Dynaudio, adam etc. I have determined that I hate "studio monitors" and am using an old hi-fi stereo system to monitor most of the time now. Let the laughing commence! I've never found monitors that showed me all these differences between convertors, cable, power etc. I secretly have the belief that there maybe some near field studio monitors out there that are amazing but I haven't heard them. ( starting to look at mid fields) I'd love to drop 10k and solve the monitor issue but this is a problem money hasn't solved for me although I am coming to peace with it more and more lately.

I totally respect your philosophy and never like to deter anyone who is on a right path(which it looks like you are). It is pretty safe to say that there are a thousand right ways to do this insane thing we call recording. If I was looking at this from an outside observer standpoint I would think you are doing the smart thing, investing in the basic's before going over the top with fun toys like eq's and pre's etc. I am not sure if this is what you've done but from what I've come to know of you that is what it looks like. I rarely get accused of doing the smart thing:-) so I've done totally the opposite and screwed up a million things along the way feeling like recoding is the hardest fought battle I've ever encountered. I've never been able to pick out expensive cables, balanced power or super high end compared to midrange convertors with any sense of accuracy. I can easily hear the difference between an API pre and an RNP(never that impressed with it) or hi quality summing. Although I don't think that summing is the reason summing sounds better I think it is the impact of the hardware from the tests I've done.

The bottom line is I've come from the standpoint of investing in gear with what I believe has the greatest sonic imprint first moving on to minutia last. Is this the best way? If it is the way I've done it I doubt it;-)

Now time for the fun Remy sign off.

You say tomato I say tom-ah-toe. The smart kids say "bite me" and make great music.
Paul

I think everybody is making good points here. Most of this is so subjective. For folks who don't have the background or experience level of others and they are not getting the mix sound they envision, the first culprit to blame for this is their equipment. And that's understandable. But you don't become Itzhak Perlman overnight without plenty of practice. You can however become Johnny Rotten, overnight. Everybody expects drive through. So the easiest way to get what you want is to go to a different hamburger place. When you're sick of McDonald's you know you can Have It Your Away at Booger King. Especially if you don't want those square cornered hamburgers from the place with the freckle faced & pigtail hairdo at Wendy's. Regardless of which one you choose, it's still a highly chopped up cow & not prime rib. Though people think that one chopped up cow is better than the other chopped up cow. To quote one of my heroes " Succotash ". So while we're talking about boxers & jockeys, I can safely say I'm not wearing any underwear. And many of us know you can go anywhere in your Maidenform bra. But since some of us don't need that kind of technical support, it's a boob point I mean moot point.

Most people can tell when I'm cold with a shirt on.
Mx. Remy Ann David

I'm not exactly sure what the BURL advantage is, and chose not to take the time to read through the very wordy paragraphs on their website. But I do know that AD/DA conversion is the process of converting voltage to numbers and then back again. It seems measuring a given voltage and giving it a number would be the straight forward part of the challenge. The hard part would seem to be converting those numbers back into the sound Waves they represent. This gets into the Nyquist theory (every engineer needs to be at least aware of the fact that Nyquist shows that any complete cycle of a sine wave can be exactly reproduced given only two datapoints anywhere along the wave) (hence the "Nyquist" frequency = 1/2 the sample rate). So it would seem to me that the biggest difference in converters would be the algorithm used to convert all those numbers back into sound.
But I'm no Electrical Engineer, so I could be missing something (maybe missing a lot!). I've always used RME products and found no problems, but in fact most of the conversion in my studio is handled by the converters in my Tascam DM-24 mixer.
I would love a chance to A/B different converters, or to read the results of anyone doing the same.
Interesting discussion, thanks Chris. I will read the BURL website eventually, just don't have time right now!

Jeff

I've done some comparisons. I own RME ADI-8 QS (RME's top converters) love them and highly recommend them. I think RME is the best in its class but that's just a guess from years of reading forums. FF800 are a real workhorse and I hated to sell mine. Plug and play, how can you go wrong.

Comparing FF800 to the ADI-8 QS's, there was enough difference to sell them and buy two ADI-8 QS's. Comparing ADI-8 QS to Lavry, Lavry wins. The difference between RME's top converters and Lavry are subtle but enough to know I don't want FF800 in my chain "no more" and can live with the QS's no problemo. They do ROCK and to get better 16 ADDA's than these, I would have spent close to 20 grand. So, I have the Lavry Blacks 2 channel package for classical and my future modest mastering rig. The Blacks are very cool.

The better the converter the more girth, width, richer silkier highs, bigger and more defined lows and a mid range that sounds less honky. Just plain better.

After years of studying the word transparency, Lavry falls under my understanding of what I'm looking for in the converter world. Transparent micpre's on the other hand, has a completely different meaning to me. When someone says they don't like the sound of an industry leader pre because it is too transparent in a metallic way, I expect to find a less than high end converter in their chain at least. The better the converters, the less irritating everything becomes and the easier it is to hear the copper and tubes vibing and so on (like an intune powerchord with heavy distortion) what a feeling when it all hits you in the gut !

Paul, your profile of me was a real compliment, Thanks! I admit I'm not the most experienced engineer but I do think I have a keen set of ears and say things they way I hear it.

What monitors do I use?
I can hear this difference using headphones or monitors. I'm using Neumann K&H 120 and Dynaudio BM6A through a Dangerous Monitor ST. My room is treated with RealTraps and ProSoundFoam. But thats not the main reason I can hear this. Aside from my strong conviction about investing in top end converters, I also have this same conviction with a monitor control system. Once you use a high end controller like the SPL MTC 2381 or the Dangerous Monitor ST, Wow! I cannot stress enough how important this is too.

After owning a crap Pro Tools 24 Mix system, I realized it starts and ends with converters.

Originally Posted by bigtree

I own RME ADI-8 QS (RME's top converters) love them and highly recommend them.

Thank you Bigtree, you've been very helpfull.
I'll be going with an RME UFX which has the same converters as the ADI-8 QS, which will be a nice step up from my PreSonus FirePod converters.

Originally Posted by ChrisH

Thank you Bigtree, you've been very helpfull.
I'll be going with an RME UFX which has the same converters as the ADI-8 QS, which will be a nice step up from my Presonus Firepod converters.

Definitely a step up, and your welcome, its been a pleasure.

Correction though, The converters are similar, though not identical.

RME User Forum / UFX vs ADI-8 QS

Cheers!

Well, if you've looked at past posts you've seen that I got an RME UFX this year and I like it a lot. I think you'll be pleased. During my transition I had a number of songs where some tracks were recorded on a Digi 002R and some with the UFX, but using the same mic/preamp combination. Unfortunately none of them used the same vocalist. Still I could discern a clear pattern of differences that have to be due primarily to the converters. However, while the difference is there it is not nearly as big as the difference between different preamps or the even larger differences between different mics. (And this is between converters widely criticised and converters that are widely praised.) Because of this, I think that if you are planning to use the preamps in an interface that should be a much bigger consideration than the converters. Fortunately, the preamps in the UFX are excellent. I've never played with the Apogee or the Motu, but the UFX pres are really high quality.

I've used many different converters. A smaller group are converters that I have actually owned and used extensively. They are:

Digi001
Digi003
RME ADI Pro
Lucid AD2496 and DA2496
Lucid 88192
Lavry Blue

I only record solo finger style acoustic and classical guitar, recording and mixing only 2 to 4 channels, so perhaps the converters are not as critical in my application. In any Event, I do not hear much of a difference with different converters. Indeed, with ABX and null tests I did, there usually wasn't much of a difference at all.

For example, when choosing between the Lavry Blue and Lucid 88192, I thought I could hear a difference, but I'm never sure about such things, particularly when they sound virtually the same to begin with. Confirmation bias can easily come into play. The ABX and null testing I did confirmed that the difference was minuscule, sometimes not there at all. More importantly, as far as my listening went, one did not sound better than the other, just two (very slightly) different flavors of very nice. I sold the Lavrys and kept the Lucid. I am happy camper with the Lucid 88192. They function very well indeed, are built like a tank and are very reasonably priced.