Shoot out: m-audio profire vs. the trusty firepod

B seems a bit more muddy than A, but tbh, that could just be in my mind. There isn't a hell of a lot of difference betwixt the two. But you've got compression killing everything anyway. For a test like this, it needs to be more scientific.
 
FWIW I had a RME - hamerfall ad i/o rig at my main studio.practice room and the firepod at home..

the pod always sounded like crap compared to the RME...you could plainly hear it..

The profire I own now is not discernible at all with the RME..the audio conversion is nearly Identical....
 
some decent mics on a solo acoustic guitar, fingerpicked maybe would be a much better test.
Self noise, transient response, distortion, and apparent EQ curve. I don't really give a shit about how it sounds with sloppy quad tracking.
Might as well do a loopback of tones too.

Not trying to be a dick, it's just not a great test.
 
I figured most people who are re-amping would find the test useful. not many are playing finger picked guitar primarily on this forum.

I didnt use curve eq at all. a bit of limiting on the 2 bus, thats it.

Its also the first shootout ive done. but I think it turned out pretty good. The difference is def. noticeable.

next time I will try to make more of a fair comparison. If you like I could record some acoustic guitar with my apex 460.

the point of the shootout is more to see the difference between budget gear, not necessarily the cream of the crop...

If people are interested, I can do some more comparisons... if not thats cool, I wont post them!
 
beyond dead said:
I figured most people who are re-amping would find the test useful. not many are playing finger picked guitar primarily on this forum.
Click to expand...


Exactly. Thanks again for doing the comparison. I found it very informative and it reinforced my thought that the Firepod is the weak-link in my chain.

@t-rave, interesting that you say the Profire so closely compares to the RME.
 
OK, I guess I don't have all the files from the little test I did with the Profire and Firepod.

All I have are 2 mixes with compression on the vocals, so not a real great comparison, and the levels aren't exact.

We had all the files on a portable HDD, and I just kept a few on my machine.

THIS IS SOUTHERN GOSPEL! So, it may not be everyone's cup 'o tea.

The idea was to see if we could tell a difference on vocals alone.

The piano is an old Kurzweil digital piano recorded on the Presonus about a year ago.

Anyway, here is the Firepod mix (recorded and mixed down on the Presonus):

http://geetarguy.tripod.com/fpfp.mp3

And here is the Profire (vocals are a little lower on this one - recorded and mixed down on the Profire):

http://geetarguy.tripod.com/pfpf.mp3
 
I hate to thread hi-jack, but let me ask a quesiton. I'm going to go ahead and say the AD/DA converter in unit makes the biggest difference in the reamp you did, correct?

I did a comparison of direct to amp and a reamp with the firepod and there is barely a hint of difference, where in your case the AD/DA of the two units (firepod and profire) sound completely different... this seems kind of strange.

Sure you didn't leave an eq on for something similar on one of the clips? I'm not protecting my firebox, because your little shootout almost made me toss mine out the window- but after my own test, I'm still standing by my presonus stuff.

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/equipment/480833-shoot-out-amp-reamp-firebox-pv-windsor.html

Again, beyond dead, I don't mean to hi-jack since you inspired me to do this shootout in the first place.
 
One important thing that also might be affecting the tone is the quality of the DI in the instrument input in the respective interfaces...would help if you had a separate DI Liam!
 
lolzgreg said:
I hate to thread hi-jack, but let me ask a quesiton. I'm going to go ahead and say the AD/DA converter in unit makes the biggest difference in the reamp you did, correct?

I did a comparison of direct to amp and a reamp with the firepod and there is barely a hint of difference, where in your case the AD/DA of the two units (firepod and profire) sound completely different... this seems kind of strange.

Sure you didn't leave an eq on for something similar on one of the clips? I'm not protecting my firebox, because your little shootout almost made me toss mine out the window- but after my own test, I'm still standing by my presonus stuff.

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/equipment/480833-shoot-out-amp-reamp-firebox-pv-windsor.html

Again, beyond dead, I don't mean to hi-jack since you inspired me to do this shootout in the first place.
Click to expand...

Whether or not you reamped, you still ran that signal through your A/D at one stage. The reamping process would've added an additional AD/DA stage, but I figure by the time the conversion is completed once, the damage is already done.

So whether or not you reamped, you still gained the firepod's 'colour' at some stage.

Other than that all I can think of is that the on-board DI on the unit is very likely a poor quality one, or perhaps the mic preamp itself is. Same ideas apply.
 
Moonlapse said:
Whether or not you reamped, you still ran that signal through your A/D at one stage. The reamping process would've added an additional AD/DA stage, but I figure by the time the conversion is completed once, the damage is already done.

So whether or not you reamped, you still gained the firepod's 'colour' at some stage.

Other than that all I can think of is that the on-board DI on the unit is very likely a poor quality one, or perhaps the mic preamp itself is. Same ideas apply.
Click to expand...

I need to try out another interface perhaps. I'm quite curious now.

What test would really reveal if the firepod is a stinker compared to this other interface that has fewer parameters?

Beyond dead, could you redo this experiment without anything in the mix, do new DI's and just do guitars, period, not a single plugin? It would be incredibly helpful and make this test a little more "sure."
 
Well if you just wanted to test conversion only I could give you some DI guitars done with a very high quality chain, and you can attribute the lossyness to each interface you use to reamp them.

If you're testing DIs/mic preamps I guess the only way is to do a separate performance into each DI/interface.
 
trave: awesome to hear how the profire stacks up to the rme!!!

nate: thanks for posting the clips! I`ll check them out when i get a chance to with my monitors

lolzgreg: absolutely no eq or comp, except a limiter on the 2 bus.

My thought is that the pre amp is the factor that contributes to the difference in the units sound. I dont think conversion between the two units is that big of a difference. Thats my take though. my reasoning is that I`m just pretty sure nowadays most cheap converters are pretty close to the more expensive ones.

I will try with another di, and use absolutely no plugs or drums!

I remember reading in the reamp thread that the fp`s di is actually pretty good. hmm

more shootouts are in order lol. It would be nice to test all factors ( like use a di, and outboard pre to see exactly what affect the conversion has )
 
beyond dead said:
My thought is that the pre amp is the factor that contributes to the difference in the units sound. I dont think conversion between the two units is that big of a difference. Thats my take though. my reasoning is that I`m just pretty sure nowadays most cheap converters are pretty close to the more expensive ones.
Click to expand...


I'm inclined to agree with this. On the shootout I did with my friend, we tracked vocals into both interfaces and mixed them down on each interface.

We then threw the tracks recorded on each interface into the other's DAW and mixed those down, mainly to see if we could tell a difference with the interface change. Obviously, the most noticeable change was between the Profire pre/profire mix and the firepod pre/firepod mix.
I don't really even think they went through any conversion after the inital A/D took place at the preamp stage, so that comparo is probably moot...Maybe jitter/clock, etc. would have been tested, but that's about it.

It'd probably be better to route a mix out and back into the front end bypassing the pres to really see if there was a difference.

Spec wise, everything about the Profire seems to be a bit better on paper. My ears confirm this.

I truly couldn't be happier with the Profire's sound quality. For 600 bucks, it truly does sound better than the other similarly priced interfaces I've used/heard/been around during tracking...And I've never been one to think M Audio produced good stuff! The new Profire series is definitely a step in the right direction. Looks like they've also just released some higher end monitors, too. Wonder if they are a step up from the BX stuff.
 
I feel my Profire GAS rising rapidly... But they're still not in stock at DV :( I'm ordering mine as soon as they appear.

Owning a FP10 myself, I instantly recognized which was which. B sounded just like my FP10, whereas A sounded cleaner and more defined. As if B had a flu or something compared to the A.
 
They seem to be hard to come by online here in the states as well. I looked at 5 or 6 different places before finding 2 in stock at Amazon.com (not through an Amazon seller, though, Amazon itself). I got it for a good enough price seeing how I needed it ASAP, 620 to my door. Amazon is out of stock now, but some Amazon sellers have them, but they are 650+.

Doh, you're in Finland, NVM.
 
mine was a display model, and the guy at the store said it could be a bit of a wait for a new one, so i took it! but forgot the fucking breakout cable at the store thats an hour away!

Im very surprised in the quality of the profire. the only thing that worried me was the possibility that I was just paying for pt compatibility, and really just getting a product thats inferior to similarly priced products on the market.

now I`m anxious to hear a shootout between the profire, and the saffire 40... :heh:
 
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