Questions about Profire 2626

[NickL]

Hey everybody, I've lately been using a focusrite saffire pro 26 i/o for my independant projects to record in cubase, then consolidating and importing into pro tools for editing and mixing. The problem is, I have huge issues with the Mbox 2's quality. I suffer from the issue with hiss on the monitor outs, a problem that the DUC knows well but digidesign claims is not an issue with their hardware.

I really need PT because the studio where I work runs it and I need to be able to transfer easily, as well as just being able to work with it as much as possible so I don't get stale. I was thinking of getting a small m-audio interface and switching to m-powered, but then I realized that I could just sell the saffire and the mbox2 and just run everything right there in PT m-powered.

My question is, will there be any sort of noticeable drop in quality between the saffire and the profire? I love the saffire to death, its responsible for the best sounding classical recordings I've ever achieved and the drivers are solid as hell. But if the consensus is that the Profire is of equal quality than I think I may have to convert. What are your opinions on this?

 

[Trevoire520]

From what I've read the converters on the Profire should be of equal/better quality, but the preamps on the Focusrite may be a tiny bit better. At this price point though I seriously doubt anyone could hear a difference between the two interfaces.

 

[NickL]

From what I've read the converters on the Profire should be of equal/better quality, but the preamps on the Focusrite may be a tiny bit better. At this price point though I seriously doubt anyone could hear a difference between the two interfaces.

I love the pres on the saffire though, I'm nervous to abandon them. Does anybody know anything about the drivers on the profire? Are they stable? I use both a PC and a Mac laptop, btw

 

[Metaltastic]

I would really really doubt the preamps of the Profire are on par with the Focusrite, or the converters for that matter. But for individual sources, I doubt the differences in converters would be noticeable, and as for preamps, well, shame on you for not have a dedicated external pair already, and this can be your catalyst! And there are tons of happy Profire users here on both platforms, so I'm guessing the drivers are pretty solid. So yeah, I vote Profire + Preamp! (RNP, perhaps)

 

[CatharsisStudios]

profire kills the focusrite man. 006 is trying to get rid of his focusrite to buy a profire.

 

[NickL]

profire kills the focusrite man. 006 is trying to get rid of his focusrite to buy a profire.

Actually I bought his focusrite, and he's onto wanting an onyx now He sold it because he kept having to turn down PT work but now he's gotten an mbox micro to do exports so he's wanting that Onyx

 

[NickL]

I would really really doubt the preamps of the Profire are on par with the Focusrite, or the converters for that matter. But for individual sources, I doubt the differences in converters would be noticeable, and as for preamps, well, shame on you for not have a dedicated external pair already, and this can be your catalyst! And there are tons of happy Profire users here on both platforms, so I'm guessing the drivers are pretty solid. So yeah, I vote Profire + Preamp! (RNP, perhaps)

I actually dont really have a need for external pres. I have access to API, Neve, Purple, and Amek pres at the studio so this is just my home recording rig. But I still like the focusrites a lot, I'll post a clip in a bit

 

[NickL]

Here is a classical guitar recording going through the Saffire preamps. That's not preamp noise, thats the noise floor of the room itself. those 414s are sensitive.

http://winterskiesprod.com/JeffTD/Sherwood1.mp3

 

[NickL]

DSS3 came up with a great idea. Using an m-audio firewire 1814 as a dongle and running the Saffire in via ADAT, clocking with the saffire. plus adding an extra 2 channels to boot. Does anybody see any issues with this? Stability etc?