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Multichannel Audio Interfaces - Best sounding?

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Posted on July 17, 2009 at 13:04:04
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 2946
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Hey gang:

I am going to be buying a PC audio interface soon - it's going to be 8 channels of D/A, probably Firewire or PCI (not USB). Not sure whether I need 24/192 yet, but 24/96 for sure. I have been looking at the following interfaces:

MOTU UltraLite-mk3 $550
MOTU 828mk3 $750
Motu Traveller $850
TC Electronic Studio Konnekt 48 $1000
RME Multiface II (PCI or PCIe) $1150

The next step up (which may cause divorce) takes me to:
RME Fireface $1700
Lynx Aurora8 $2200

The stuff I KNOW I can't/won't afford quite yet:
Apogee Rosetta 800 or Lavry Blue. (Dare to dream).

Here is my thinking: If I figure I don't NEED 24/192 capability (this is for a tri-amped playback system) then I might be best off with the RME Multiface - for $1150 I probably won't get 8 channels with better clocks and D/A. MOTU gets me into 24/192 for a lot less money than RME, but sound quality trumps max sample rate in this app of mine. (I have very little 24/192 material to play back, and I am not even sure I will have that much to play back in the future anyways - depending on the direction of hi-res blue-ray and hi-res downloads).

So the big question is: how much better is the RME clock and D/A than the MOTU stuff? And which MOTU unit (if any) begins to compete sonically with the RME Multiface? And how big is the jump from Motu to RME compared with, say, the jump from RME to Lavry or Apogee?

Any input from you recording "audio interface" gurus would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Presto

RE: Multichannel Audio Interfaces - Best sounding?, posted on September 17, 2009 at 06:50:04
Inmate51
Audiophile

Posts: 1219
Joined: July 6, 2005
 Hey Presto, sorry about the late reply... I just now saw this thread (I think).

Not sure what your app is, but you might also want to look at the M-Audio ProFire 8-preamp unit and the Presonus thingies. They both have Firewire interfaces. Lastly, and this may be outdated news, but I've heard that the Firewire 800 is a bit problematic as compared to Firewire 400.
Thanks for the input guys!! -t, posted on July 25, 2009 at 15:55:48
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 2946
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 -t

In addition to b.l.'s post....., posted on July 23, 2009 at 04:17:19
doodlebug
Audiophile

Posts: 1740
Location: Little Rock, Arkansas
Joined: July 27, 2006
 I'd suggest you add the Presonus FireStudio audio strip to your list. They've finally become stable and are in the pro-sumer range of pricing.

A couple of other things for you to consider:

- Multiple mic pres: Why are you wanting them? If you're planning on playback only, why go there?

- Stability of drivers: This is where the rubber meets the road with many, many of the pro-sumer audio interfaces, IME. That is many of the producers of pro-sumer level gear do not have a good track record of delivering stable, functional and robust drivers especially for the PC world - I don't have a Mac so can't comment there.

Go to places like Gearslutz _and_ the vendor's own forums to see the complaints and functional requests being made to get a idea of the issues here. Generally, Motu, Presonus and many of the smaller pro-sumer vendors are only now getting reasonably stable and latentency-efficient drivers onto their respective platforms - even while they've expanded their product lines. I believe one of the problems here has been that they've not been able to hire really knowledgeable driver developers until the economy turned down.

- Hi-rez: 24/96 or 24/192, etc: Unless you are making live-on-site multichannel recordings, I can't see why you'd want to do far more than 24/96 at this time. I would be nice to do better, but it will depend on the resolution you need. For playback of prerecorded material, this is pretty much controlled by the source which you have no control over.

- Consumer/Pro-sumer/Pro: Generally, I bucket these 3 segments in this way:

- Consumer: the little 2-mic input boxes marketed to a guy with a guitar in his bedroom. Generally, not over $300 or so.
- Pro-sumer: That market for multichannel mic-pre-laden audio interfaces that come in blocks of 8 preamps per strip. Motu/Presonus, etc fall into this category. Some, like the Presonus have add-on devices like the Monitor Station Remote, that makes the guy in his bedroom feel like he's operating a 'real' studio with talk-back, etc. Its still a romper-room sort of thing in that it is used casually but _could_ be put to good use in the proper skilled hands. Prices here will not exceed $1,000.
- Pro: This gear is designed, marketed to and sold to those very skilled hands. They are priced accordingly and will start in the high hundreds of $$ to well into the 5-digit range. RME, Lavray and other devices you see discussed at places like Gearslutz fit into this category. The focus here is on recording capabilities first rather than playback.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

David

RE: Multichannel Audio Interfaces - Best sounding?, posted on July 17, 2009 at 13:55:50
b.l.zeebub
Audiophile

Posts: 810
Location: 52deg 28'N,1deg56'W
Joined: April 17, 2006
 Stay away from MOTU!

Don't sound particularly well and work particularly badly with PCs. Fine with Macs though.

I'd recommend Echo Audio interfaces as they sound easily as good as anything RME has to offer.
You'd need to go to Apogee Rosetta or Lavry to get anything appreciably better.
They are also a lot cheaper then even MOTU and rock solid!
My own AudioFire 12 does twelve channels of 24/96 fully duplex without breaking a sweat.
RE: Multichannel Audio Interfaces - Best sounding?, posted on July 21, 2009 at 11:05:09
Presto
Audiophile

Posts: 2946
Location: Canada
Joined: November 10, 2004
 Thanks B.

I have been looking at the Echo Layla 3G PCI and the Echo Audio Firewire 8 channel. The 12 channel is nicer - 24/192 capable and gosh is just looks so much nicer!

I have also been looking at a rare breed - the ESI ESP1010e. ESI stuff is supposed to sound good and lots of guys on PC Audio forum love the 2-channel PCI card from ESI, the Julia. The neat thing about the ESI gear is the "Directwire 3.0" software which makes routing between audio busses very intuitive.

I'll see if I can audition an Echo!

Thanks for the input.

Cheers,
Presto

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