Best sounding Audio Interface?

[MonkeyMan]

hmmmm. I am considering purchasing either an RME Fireface 800 or a Mackie Onyx 400F. I am looking for the best quality sounding input with the best headroom (with the lowest noise/hiss).

Anyone have any hands on use or opinions on either of these two units - or may have another best option?

Cheers in advance.

[Doc Jones]

When I was looking at replacing my layla24, all my research led me to the Fireface 800. I haven't picked one up yet, but have heard many good things about it. Ten has one, so perhaps he can give you more details.

[MonkeyMan]

Thanks Doc. I must admit my research was also leading toward the RME Fireface - that was before finding the new Mackie Onyx 400F. Not too sure now.

It appears on paper that the RME Fireface beats it on features (extra audio inputs etc) BUT as you know, sometimes less is more. Mackie have a renowned sound quality - would be nice to have the two compared.

[ten]

I recommend the fireface to anyone wanting a decent soundcard. Simply put it just works as it should, out of the box with no fucking about. The drivers are rock solid and not bloatware, the patch software is easy to use and very powerful and most importantly the sound quality is stunning.

It has a lush bottom end that I never had on previous soundcards (even an rme 9632), its very clear and the stereo spread is great. It can also hit latencies of 1.5ms at 64 buffer with no problems, and even lower at 96 or 192 sample rate.

The support RME give is second to none. They have released about 30 driver revisions since the Fireface came out about a year ago now. They will happily release a driver upgrade for the smallest fix very quickly, sometimes just days apart. Not like some anal companies who wait 6-12 months for a big one job fix all which causes more problems then it does fix (can you say emu? :) RME also have a dedicated newsgroup where you can post any issues or queries/questions to them and someone from support with answer normally within a couple of hours.

I use its inputs to route my dj equipment to my speakers which is great for bedroom shenanigans. Its other inputs are patched to the virus TIs analog channels given me those valuble extra 3 stereo streams of TI fun :) The outputs I use to patch Live back into my dj mixer where I can bring in extra samples, loops or even songs on the 3rd/4th chan.

In a nut shell. Sturdy bit of hardware, rock drivers and software, awesome support from RME, great I/O and some really nice sound.

Yea it costs a fair bit of ???, but you will seriously not need another soundcard for a long long time :)

ten

[MonkeyMan]

Ten. Nice one pal - sound quality/headroom and stereo spread cannot be bought cheaply - if I had the spare cash I would go the Apogee route.

Firmly swung back to the RME then!

[Timo]

What about a Motu 828 Mk2 or Traveler?

[MonkeyMan]

Timo. Cheers - I did briefly consider the MOTU units. I think the MKII has been around a good couple of years now, which kind of puts me off technology wise. The traveller looks like a superb piece of kit - but as the name suggest I believe is aimed sqaurely at the notebook market as opposed to the desktop.

Is the audio quality as good as the RME or Mackie?

[Tomer=Trance]

RME's stuff are rock solid!
i wouldnt think twise if its in your budget range.
high quality convertors,massive dynamic range,very low noise level and of course great drivers for pc and mac.

[Timo]

Ayup Munky, not sure about exact comparisons as to how much one is better than the other, but the Traveler (god i hate american spellings!) received a very enthusiastic [review (http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun05/articles/motutraveler.htm)] from SOS. As did the [Fireface (http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec04/articles/fireface.htm)] - much so! The Onyx 400F hasn't been reviewed yet, at least by SOS (although the [800R (http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb05/articles/mackieonyx800r.htm)] has), but people are seemingly impressed with the audio quality of the mixers of the same name, on forums and stuff.

Now's a pretty good time, technology wise. Thing is, there's almost too much choice. :roll: :)

I guess it just comes down to their feature set(s) and price.

I've plucked for a Traveler as it was cheaper than the Fireface and has an equally decent feature set building on from the Moto 828 mk2, with flexible routing/patching and solid drivers. I'm an enthusiast, not a pro, so couldn't really spend up to the Fireface amount as I was stretching it as much as I could already.
The fireface's soft-clipping would've been ace, though.

Check out the reviews and feature sets, check your budget, and spend. :) I certainly don't think you can go far wrong with the RME if you have the cash.

[MonkeyMan]

Nice one Timo. The RME seems to be out in front all round at the moment. I suppose now I need to source a cheap one!

[Doc Jones]

Nice one Timo. The RME seems to be out in front all round at the moment. I suppose now I need to source a cheap one!
Keep your eye on ebay - I see a few pop up there quite a bit. Of course, there are a lot of people who want them so the price goes up, but every once in a while someone puts one up with a buy it now that is much less than if you were to buy it new.

[MonkeyMan]

Nicely diagnosed Doc. The cheapest I have seen an RME Fireface 800 (new) is ?815 from Thomman. Can this beaten anyone?

[~+?]

Get the RME, the build and workmanship is second to none, can only be described as engineering excellence! "BBC"

[The girl next door]

Motu 828 MK2...Were happy with ours and it's 500 euros cheaper than the Fireface 800.Unless you need so many I/Os
All the stuff on our website was done with the 828 :lol:(But do take into consideration that it is internet quality) :wink:

[ZEBASTIAN]

you can always keep your current soundcard and use the spdif out with a dedicated DAC such as Apogee minidac/ benchmark dac 1. and some of the RME themselves.
or you can use a Presonus Central Station s DAC...for what i understand it sounds amazing..

[Tomer=Trance]

but then you will be losing the capability of multi channel recording\convertion.
you need a card that can handle ADAT such as some of the RME cards for instance.

[SupaSandeep]

RME Fireface! I've never seen anyone not like it, also I've seen the least amount of complains/problems with them... The response on the fireface lead me to buy a Multiface II and I absolutely love it

[adsr]

it's open for debate, but i listened to rme multi-face, benchmark, apogee, lucid, lynx, digidesign, motu...pretty much everything i could and found the lynx 2 sounds most like the high-end stuff in terms of clarity. i was also looking seriously into ramsa which is panasonic's high-end and a friend of mine who's a studio recordist [does large orchestral work] really felt that they were tops for 2k. i wasn't certain about the osx drivers and support w/ the ramsa, so i went w/ the lynx 2.

i didn't consider m-audio or other lesser quality cards for studio rig. my mobile setup uses a firewire m-audio thing which is fine for live--very stable/reliable, knock wood :roll:

[MonkeyMan]

Wise choice. From what I have read the Lynx II is a fantastic sounding interface. Shame it is only PCI (I have a dualcore Mac with it's PCI-express) so that's one off the list for me.

Now leaning firmly towards the Apogee Ensemble - when it comes out.