protools hd signal flow

[Ermz]

Who do you guys judge the quality of a converter?

I mean there are technical points like:

Headroom
sampling (nyquist and shannon stuff)
Jitter stuff
clock

but how do you choose between all the high-class converters like Lynx, apogee, RME, digi, benchmark for example ?

For me it's mostly through listening. It's hard to do unless you have all the converters lined up, but I had a chance to A/B a Lynx Aurora to an Apogee Rosetta a few times, and was amazed at how much better the Aurora sounded. After that I became an Aurora convert and want one.

@joey: You won't be losing anything going from an FF to a 192. On the contrary you may actually gain something.

 

[gabriel g.]

So you say at the end it is subjective?

I always ask myself: What makes the Aurora sound different then the Apogee?

 

[Lasse Lammert]

For me it's mostly through listening. It's hard to do unless you have all the converters lined up, but I had a chance to A/B a Lynx Aurora to an Apogee Rosetta a few times, and was amazed at how much better the Aurora sounded. After that I became an Aurora convert and want one.

@joey: You won't be losing anything going from an FF to a 192. On the contrary you may actually gain something.

yep, I thought the aurora was quite a bit better than the rosetta.
the AD-16 is another step up from the aurora (also a bit more expensive though)


Gabriel:
for me it's the 3d space good converters provide...cheaper converters seem to narrow and reduce the depth etc.

 

[Ermz]

Glad to hear the AD-16 is right up there with quality. I'm not familiar with them at all.

@Gabriel: It's a difficult thing. There is the infamous GS test where like 80%+ people in a blind shoot-out preferred a behringer ada800 over a lynx aurora. Who knows how those specs translate into what we actually hear. I just go by ear because at the end of the day that's all I have.

 

[jval]

Convertor wars are so stupid... the 192 sounds great, don't think twice. It ships with 8 analog in/out and 8 digital (adat) in/out. As adam mentioned there is an expansion slot - you can buy an add-on card for either 8 more analog in, or 8 more outs, or an extra digital card.
There is a "legacy" port which allows you to easily connect to some third party converters like Apogees, but you always need a Digi interface in there somewhere. The Lynx converter basically fools your computer into thinking it's a 192... looked into those but felt uneasy about it since it's not officially supported at apparently has no calibration options.

I have everything going through a patch bay but similar to a previous poster, basic setup:
Analog 1-8 - Outboard pres
Digital 1-8 - Focusrite octopre (adat)
Analog outs 1-2 straight to monitor controller. 3-4 to headphone mix. Other outputs just get patched in for whatever. Once i can get some more nice outboard pre's I'll ditch the focusrite and hook up my old 96io again for the extra 8 inputs.

 

[JeffTD]

Ahem...
Nay.
believe he uses the 192s, but uses the Spider via a Good ol Adat bridge (think its still supported ) plugged into the legacy port of the 192.... could be wrong though.

How is that at all different from what I said??

 

[greyskull]

not sure that he uses the Rmes over the crane song or the 192's.