E-Mu & M-Audio

[metalkingdom]

Fair enough, but that still doesn't explain why they sound so different(worse IMO) from the 192's(which I will say I'm not crazily fond of anymore now that the studio got some Apogee's and the HEDD).

The Apogee's (Rosetta's, I'm assuming) sound better because they have a better clock than the 192's. That's probably the reason that the 192 sounds better than the E-MU. The HEDD kicks ass, too. Actually, most of that Cranesong stuff is pretty killer, don't you think?

I wonder if Andy has heard/used/owns the Rosettas?

 

[Exsanguis]

I'm actually talking about the AD and DA16's, but I like the Rosetta's, too. We had a big converter shootout at the studio not too long ago with everything from Lynx to Mytek to Apogee to Crane Song to RME, M-Audio, Emu, and Terratec. Needless to say, the studio was a complete mess for a few days, but I learned a lot. We first compared all the converters with their own internal clocks, then clocked them off a Big Ben and ran the same comparisons again. The Emu's suffer from more than just an inferior clock, they sounded different regardless of clocking(better with the Big Ben, obviously, but still worse). The higher end converters sounded amazing, but we couldn't justify spending so much on converters such as Mytek and Prism when we'd still have to have the Digidesign 192 Digital interfaces there to get into Pro Tools, so we ended up buying the AD16's and DA16's with the HD cards, one HEDD, and a Spider. We sold our 192's and haven't looked back since. No problems, and everything sounds better than ever.

 

[Bob Savage]

I used a Delta 1010 with a Mackie 1202 VLz for some time and moved to the E-MU 1820m and liked it much better than the Delta. I also found the mic pre's on the 1820 to be far more condusive to a clear top end for guitar tracking than the Mackie/Delta combo.

I'm now using an RME Fireface 800 and an Octamic-D and am very happy, but it's not a lower budget solution.