Apple Logic Pro /LogicExpress Discussion

I wonder if anybody are using the RME QS converters. They are quite expensive, are they as good as their price suggests. My studio is in pretty fine shape and anything but a top of the line industry standard (I use that term loosely) would be a bad idea to invest in.
I realise that there is another level of converters after the ones in the RME pricetag (ie Prism) that are twice (at least) as expensive. I am not interested in how terrific they are, RME QS is my limit. I prefer the ADAT interface and plan to buy the RME Raydat as well but it seems to me like there´s very little competition in the 24/192 hi end. 
Another thing I have noticed with the QS line is the very low internal latency (between 5 and 12 samples depending on the samplerate) which is half of the best I have tried myself and my current converters are about 3 times that.
The Apogee Symphony line has similar features (on all accounts) but not with ADAT and with 10% extra in expenses.
MOTU doesn´t seem to have anything quite like it at the moment.
Are there brands that I should take a look at before buying, I need 16 I/O in 96 KHz and I definitely don´t want to use more than one slot in the Mac.

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HKC,

Every study (blindfold, other) I've looked into, the results seem to be:   The high end converters may be clearly better from a technical standpoint, but from the aesthetic point of view, the inexpensive ones don't usually sound "worse" but just different.   The listeners could tell the sound was different, but as different styles of music were played, it was clear that it was just a matter of preference and using the right sound for the right application.

One Study, was in either Mix or Electronic Musician, Recording, etc.  I'll try to find it.

When I did my own comparison, I used the 3DAudio CD and came to the same conclusion.   The differences were so minute, or unnoticeable, and when it was noticeable it wasn't as much as a "better" than it was a "different' sound.

http://www.3daudioinc.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/31?osCsid=d5057a5aad0a07d45687ae7dbb42b4f4

I don't mean to deter you from your excitement or a cool new piece of gear, I just thought it would be fair for you to hear the other side of the debate before spending money.

I'll look into the converter you mentioned, I'm curious about them.

There used to be a cool "summing comparison" shootout video at http://recordproduction.com/    But I think Steinberg may have asked them to pull it off the site?   Neundo got a universal thumbs down from the panel, RADAR seemed to "win" that one, and 2 inch tape was the surprise disappointment.

Pete

--- In Logic_Cafe@yahoogroups.com, "HKC" <hkc@...> wrote:

>
> I wonder if anybody are using the RME QS converters. They are quite expensive, are they as good as their price suggests. My studio is in pretty fine shape and anything but a top of the line industry standard (I use that term loosely) would be a bad idea to invest in.
> I realise that there is another level of converters after the ones in the RME pricetag (ie Prism) that are twice (at least) as expensive. I am not interested in how terrific they are, RME QS is my limit. I prefer the ADAT interface and plan to buy the RME Raydat as well but it seems to me like there´s very little competition in the 24/192 hi end. 
> Another thing I have noticed with the QS line is the very low internal latency (between 5 and 12 samples depending on the samplerate) which is half of the best I have tried myself and my current converters are about 3 times that.
> The Apogee Symphony line has similar features (on all accounts) but not with ADAT and with 10% extra in expenses.
> MOTU doesn´t seem to have anything quite like it at the moment.
> Are there brands that I should take a look at before buying, I need 16 I/O in 96 KHz and I definitely don´t want to use more than one slot in the Mac.
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

From: pete_buchwald
Every study (blindfold, other) I've looked into, the results seem to be: The high end converters may be clearly better from a technical standpoint, but from the aesthetic point of view, the inexpensive ones don't usually sound "worse" but just different. 


I understand that very well. The problem here is that I have a kind of established studio and I simply have to have converters that is generally considered to be "better". It´s somewhat ridiculous but it´s also very much something that a lot of studios have to deal with. Not unlike a mediocre singer thinking that it matters whether he´s recorded with an American handbuilt mic or a Chinese or Australian one. 
Also there is the low internal latency thing, if I´m able to work with 32 samples from the soundcard and only another 10 added by the converters I will have an almost analogue scenario which is something that I would love to have. 
I have tried quite a few converters to see if the latency varies as much as RME and Apogee claims and it does. 
I don´t know how to measure them exactly so what I do is that I use the "recording delay" to give me an idea. When using my own ancient Swissonic I have -46, a more recent RME is -48, a M-Audio I tried was -83 and a Behringer -97. Of coutse I don´t know if my soundcard driver is exactly 0 but I do know that Behringer is more than twice my own ones and introduces more latency than the actual soundcard which kind of ruins the point of running with 32 samples.



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A Lynx Aurora 16 coupled with a Lynx AES16e might fit your bill.

Best,

Zip

From: Zip Boterbloem 
A Lynx Aurora 16 coupled with a Lynx AES16e might fit your bill.


Maybe but what about the internal latency, Lynx doesn´t mention that at all. I wonder if I just should put everything on hold for another 6 months, it seems unreasonably expensive to pay an extra $1000 dollars pr 8 channels for a 25 samples latency reduction. 
My G5 still works, history indicates that Apple will come with an updated proline in about 6 months, Snow Leopard will be included for free at that point, UAD2 is still new so no discounts there at the moment etc. This may actually be the worst time ever to upgrade come to think of it.



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