Need advices for a good USB audio interface.

[Heabow]

Bump

 

[Eschatologist]

My vote goes for anything RME. I had a FireFace 400 for years and it was solid, and I've since side-graded to a Multiface 2 to accommodate an evolving setup and it's been awesome as well.

 

[Heabow]

Thank you.

A bit out of topic: I tried a FireFace 800 and a Motu 828MKII (both firewire) and I had the same issues. Damn, don't know what's wrong in there!

 

[AD Chaos]

You could solve the issue quite easily in a PC. 20 bucks or so get you a PCI-E to firewire card with the Texas Instruments chip thing.

My vote goes for anything RME

^ This. You will hear the difference.

 

[Heabow]

Maybe it's not caused by Firewire/Thunderbolt connection. It's just a possibility. I've heard things about Hyperthreading too...

@mva801: what's your OS? It seems like PT10 has some weird CPU issues with Moutain Lion 10.8.5.

 

[Alphanumeric]

Maybe it's not caused by Firewire/Thunderbolt connection. It's just a possibility. I've heard things about Hyperthreading too...

@mva801: what's your OS? It seems like PT10 has some weird CPU issues with Moutain Lion 10.8.5.

Well the roland is USB to start .... :I

But, the stock pre's in their are killer, way way above the other usb stuff from focusrite, m audio etc, obviously not in RME territory here.

Extremely stable too, its well known for this, its worked straight off with everyone I know who's had it.

If too much the quad is cool too, the auto sens is killer, impedance, lift etc

 

[Heabow]

Thanks for your input man. Good to know that. The only thing I want to do really soon is to connect a good USB interface to my iMac and see if everything acts properly. And I pray fo it!

 

[JHA]

Hi,

I bought a new iMac which is a real beast (i7 3.5gHz, 32Go RAM, HD Fusion Drive 1To...) But it also have thunderbolt port only - not firewire anymore on new models - and I work with a Digi003 Rack+ (firewire). I've never had any issue with my former iMac that had a firewire port but now, my system does not work as it supposed to. So I contacted Chris Holmes to get some tech support on this. We tested 2 FW interfaces (DIGI003 and Firestudio) same results. I still have to check that but it seems that adpater firewire/thunderbolt causes some problems (buffer size setting issue -> latency during recording, CPU overload...) MAYBE I will need to get an USB interface. So just in case, I'd like to have some good stuff to look at if I actually need to buy one.

It was not planned so my budget is quite low, say around 500€ is the very VERY maximum. I guess I can get something decent in this price range tho. I need at least 4 good preamps, preferably 8. Great sound and even more important, great stability and great performances latency wise. And a 19" rack format would be preferable. Argh, RME soundcards are awesome but they're also WAY too expensive for me right now.

I don't know nothing about Tascam but I read good words about them. I heard that Motu interfaces are generally great but not that stable...Here are some interfaces I saw, I'd like to have your opinion. Other suggestions are more than welcome!

- Focusrite Scarlett 18i20
- Tascam US-1800
- Tascam US-2000
- Presonus Audiobox 1818VSL
- Roland UA-1010 Octa-Capture (this one seems to be great, uh?)
- Motu 8 Pre USB
- Motu Audio Express
- Motu 4 Pre Hybrid
- Motu UltraLite MKIII Hybrid

Thanks in advance Sneapers!

Oh, I work on an iMac OSX 10.8.5 with PT10.3.7.

Do my eyes deceive me or are the MOTU units plastic? Not a good combination with high impedance preamps and computers with noisy switching PSUs.

 

[SignaveriS]

the roland is japan made also, must be good

 

[mva801]

I still run Snow Leopard (10.6.8) on my studio iMac. I always wait forever to upgrade OS's until I really have to. When I have a stable system and no real need to upgrade, I just leave the shit alone.