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anonymous 2 September 2003

Hello, does anyone have an opinion as to the difference in sound quality with the original 2408, 2408MKII or MKIII models? I own the original and want to add another for 16 channels. The originals are going for aprox $150 while the newer models are $300 and $800. Is it worth the extra cost or should I maybe even look into different converters all together.

Comments

anonymous Fri, 09/05/2003 - 05:10

Hey guys:

If you have a PC I would strongly recommend staying away from Motu. Their drivers are bad, and their tech support is worse!

The way I see it is...
Look how many different options a 2408 or 828 gives you, and look at the price. Too squeeze all that functionality in one box for that price means they are skimping out on something. Probably the Pre's or the converters. The price is great, but I think it is too good to be true.
I have used the 896 before, and i thought the converters were pretty weak, I ended up using an Alesis AI-4 converter for the rest of the album...ouch.

-Mark

anonymous Sat, 09/06/2003 - 08:14

I run a MOTU 2408 Mk3 and a 24I/O on a PC with Nuendo 1.61 and it works perfectly. People who make blanket statements about 'PCs' like the above really dont know what theyre talking about. With so many different combinations of chipsets, cards, drivers, ect out there, the PC platform IS a minefield where you should make sure you really research your choices before diving in. But both platforms have stuff that you have to know if you want a stable, productive system.
As far as the converters are concerned, the Mk3's converters are a big step up from the originals IMO. And the no latency cue mix on the Mk3 is a big plus. AND I've actually had no problems with MOTUs tech support the one time I needed to get ahold of them.

anonymous Sun, 09/07/2003 - 02:40

Greetings All,

Whilst I can't comment on the differences between mk1, mk2 & mk3, as an owner/user of mk3 with a PC (albeit a piss poor PC) I have to agree with Syborg when he says that it works fine with PCs.

Just to clear up (possible) confusion though, I must add that the 2408 doesn't have any mic-pres - it works at line level - so if you wish to use it with mics (or Hi-Z instruments) you'll need a separate pre, channel strip or mixer.

HTH

anonymous Sun, 09/07/2003 - 16:45

Greetings mmsm,

To quote Kel "Aww, here it goes...'

AMD Duron 1.3GHz CPU
PC Chips mobo
SiS 730 chipset
Maxtor 2FO4OJO 40GB, 5400rpm HDD
unknown 224MB SDRAM
Win XP Professional (recent upgrade from Home)

The MOTU uses the PCI-424 PCI card (comes with the core system £845 new in London, UK), which is plugged into one of only two slots available on the far from recommended (for audio/studio applications) motherboard.

Unfortunately, when I bought the PC I knew absolutely nothing about them (in terms of components and how they work) and believed the bloke I bought it from (in a music shop too :( ) when he said that I was buying a 'music PC'.

Mind you, it's with this same PC that I learned (from forums such as this) so much about them (and how much more I still need to learn :D

With regards to the MOTU, I'd learned my lesson by the time I bought this and had done some extensive research (including listening to equipment) before parting with my hard-earned. What I have in this is (for the money) top quality A-D & D-A conversion, 8 analog in, 10 analog out (master same as 1 & 2) plus headphones, 24 channels of ADAT & TDIF all up to 24-bit/96KHz wordlength/sampling rate, Wordclock, SMPTE and 'Cue Mix' DSP routing/monitoring software.

Also, let's not forget that the PCI-424 has room for up to three more 'Audiowire' devices - i.e. expandability :p

anonymous Mon, 09/08/2003 - 05:46

The statement i made about MOTU and PC's is not exactly blanket. I have worked on just about every major type of motherboards, chipsets, etc and have found very minimal positives coming out of Motu gear.
Sure, sometimes they will work fine, but more times than not...they probably wont. if it happened once or twice i would ignore it, but i probably have worked on 10 motu machines and maybe 3 of them were stable...moderately at that.

As for Motu's tech support.. perhaps sometimes they are ok... but i have never had an easy time talking with them.

let us know how your results are if you decide to go with it.. i would be curious.

-Mark

anonymous Tue, 09/09/2003 - 22:54

Another 2408 mkIII success story here, and a new member of this fine forum.
Here are my specs:
ECS L7S7A2 mobo (cheap but efective, SIS 746 chipset)
1 Gig crucial DDR 2700 Ram
3 Maxtor HD's (OS/software, Sample library, audio)
Teac CD-RW
Matrox G450 DH 32 meg DDR
Athlon CP 2500+ (barton core)
Zalman CPU6000 (or something) all cooper heatsink/fan
Mackie UAD dsp card

System works rock solid. 0 problems. I'm using behringer's DDX3216 digital board as a front end for the time beign (nice board for the price though). The 2408 is a nice piece of hardware. I guess in level with RME and lynx on top. I've had such a good experience, that I went ahead and bought motu's microexpress midi usb interface. It works awesome too. I don't use the analog I/O on the 2408 much though. Call me crazy but I find the A/D conversion on the behringer digital board rarely good. In my opinion, this board is probably one of the few gear pieces that berry has excell somewhat. It also allows me to track 16 sources (16 buses in the board), in one shot via the adat ports on the 2408 in a split fashion while monitoring with FX without significant software latency otherwise.

Guest Wed, 09/10/2003 - 04:02

I only work on Macs with audio, so I can't say anything about stability with PC's. My setup on the Mac is rock solid.

Currently I own an 828, and the converters sound great compaired to others. I also owned a digi001, and to my ear, these sound better. I also used to own an original 2408, and made some truly great sounding CD's on that system. I think more important than the a/d in this case is the mic preamps that you are using. The original 2408 is only 20 bit, and that's why I moved to the 001 and then back to MOTU with the 828 in the first place. If you can afford, the 2408 MKII is 24 bit...so I'd go with that. The original 2408 and the MKII work together. While you only truly get 20 bits out of the original, you can still take advantage of the 24 bit capabilities of the original.

anonymous Tue, 09/23/2003 - 17:56

I am going to be selling a MOTU setup because their support is really not good, and there are better pieces out there ...I went to the Metric Halo Mobile I/O 2882..They're more for Mac folks...I dont think they have drivers for PC yet...A lot of my PC buddy's go with RME gear...Much better converters than the MOTU gear..Give a call to the MOTU tech support to chat, and see what I mean ..Jim

anonymous Sat, 09/27/2003 - 07:16

Originally posted by Spy:
AMD Duron 1.3GHz CPU
PC Chips mobo
SiS 730 chipset
Maxtor 2FO4OJO 40GB, 5400rpm HDD
unknown 224MB SDRAM
Win XP Professional (recent upgrade from Home)

You should consider a replacement machine. This comment is not meant to be offensive, just fact. The combination of components above is purely bargain basement quality in all respects. I own a computer business and would never consider using the above low-end components in a machine meant for meaningful work. SiS and PC Chips are low-budget products. Expect them to perform that way.

You could replace the Duron with an Athlon for an instant and noticeable boost in performance. However, doing this with a cheesy board is a waste of money.

If you stay with AMD, you can get an nForce powered board (Asus, ABit) for a reasonable price, and a 2500~2600 Athlon for a very modest price. Be sure to get the 333 MHz front side bus speed, and matching PC2700 DDR RAM. Windows XP requires 128mb just to load the OS kernel. If you want to do any work, you must have more memory. 256mb is the bare minimum, and 512mb is much preferred.

5400 RPM drives don't perform nearly as well as their 7200 RPM cousins. The newer/faster drives have much larger buffers, which adds to their performance. This is a marked improvement. Keep the 5400 RPM drive for your operating system, add a 2nd 7200 larger drive for your recording purposes.

anonymous Sun, 09/28/2003 - 16:38

:)

Greetings bgavin,

Originally posted by bgavin:
You should consider a replacement machine. This comment is not meant to be offensive, just fact. The combination of components above is purely bargain basement quality in all respects. I own a computer business and would never consider using the above low-end components in a machine meant for meaningful work. SiS and PC Chips are low-budget products. Expect them to perform that way.

No offense taken. Like I said...

Whilst I can't comment on the differences between mk1, mk2 & mk3, as an owner/user of mk3 with a PC (albeit a piss poor PC) I have to agree with Syborg when he says that it works fine with PCs.

... and...

Basically, my PC isn't really up to the task for which its used and yet I'm still using it. I'm not currently in the position to upgrade/replace it but now that I know so much more than I did when I bought it I'll get something much more appropriate next time :D

... but thanks for the advice anyway :tu:

anonymous Thu, 10/09/2003 - 04:31

hi folks. Insomnia has reared it's head and I find mysefl here :-) I'm going to quote some specs just to try and help this thread a little. I don't own either piece. The new Motu stuff uses a new pci card which will work with the g5 Macs. The MK2 uses a pci324 as I believe was mentioned. The MK3 uses a pci 424. There's a difference in the voltage spec on the g5's pci slots and the old 324 cards won't work in them. So if anyone is thinking of going to a g5, you need the new one. Apparantly the audio quality is improved. Now the spec quote:

"The MK3 has 110 db dynamic range and up to 96K, the MK2 105 db
dynamic range and 44.1K or 48K only. Bottom line: The MK3 sounds
much better."

This came from Motu tech support, I read it on a mailing list and am just passing it on.

anonymous Thu, 10/09/2003 - 04:47

Running a MOTU HD192 on a dual 1.42 mac useing Digital Performer 4.1.... Working on a song with over 32 tracks @ 24 bit, 96K that has 4 verbs, 1 echo, and I'd say about 15 other dynamics plugins... runs fine.... sounds good. I realy don't have anything to comapre it to other than an Ardvark USB3... the HD192 blows it away. What comes out of the converters sounds pretty much like what I put into it...

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