What AD/DA converters are you using?
- Thread starter dchase
- Start date
Apogee ad-8000
digi 888/24
digi 192 I/O
the Apogee is the best out of the stack. i love the range they give me and how the clocks are so stable.
digi 888/24
digi 192 I/O
the Apogee is the best out of the stack. i love the range they give me and how the clocks are so stable.
Giganova
gimmi your mic!
I have an Alesis AI3 which connects my Allen & Heath 16:2 to the RME lightpipe card. Sounds wonderful. Given how good it sounds, I came to the conclusion that converters are highly overrated. They are the last piece of gear you will actually hear in your studio.
mshilarious
Banned
SonicAlbert
Super-Sonic "Herb" Albert
Since posting earlier in this thread, I've purchased a Universal Audio 2192. A fantastic sounding converter, couldn't be happier!
treymonfauntre
Magic Bag Of Sounds
fostex vf16 as well as an echo gina 24/96 interface. i really need a high end preamp and convertor though
I run through the built in converters in my ISA 428 and an Apogee Rosetta when I need more than two channels (clocked by the Rosetta).
When I need a stereo pair, or I only need one or two channels, it's the Rosetta.
When I need a stereo pair, or I only need one or two channels, it's the Rosetta.
Joni0001984
New member
I saw a test that said Apogee was a little better than everything else, and just a little behind came Lynx and far back in the list was RME HDSP.
I own the L22 myself and I really like the all american feeling I get from listening to it. Chinese soundcard tend to sound, well chinese. I was surprised to see RME so far down the list. Maybe the germans newer cards are better.
If anyone has a mod for the Lynx L22 that they know works and is a clear improvement, let me know.
dementedchord
Psychotic State alumni ch
joni... you'll need to speak up... they're in 2005 
Well I guess this thread isn't ancient anymore 
I use a Lynx Two A along with a daughter card forgot model
but it's the one that give you ADAT. i also use a Apogee
Duet.
I would say there both very similar in quality. If anything
I would say the low end might be a little tighter on the 2A.
I use a Lynx Two A along with a daughter card forgot model
but it's the one that give you ADAT. i also use a Apogee
Duet.
I would say there both very similar in quality. If anything
I would say the low end might be a little tighter on the 2A.
D
dintymoore
Guest
I'm using crap - Delta 1010LT. My digital path is fucked up, and because of the economy I'm not pouring $ into gear like I was in the past.
I've been looking at the Apogee Duet, and if I really wanted it I'd sell something and buy it. The problem is that I'm not sold on any of this stuff. I remember my friend's Dad's studio - the good stuff, MCI 24 track, Neve board, EMT, Allen Sides hand picked vintage Neumanns, and I also remember paying $300 to put 3 MB RAM in my Atari 1040ST so that there was enough memory to play the Santana medley via MIDI.
My point is, I don't think 24/96 is anywhere near where this will stop, and I don't think it's good enough. I also think there's a good chance the Apogee Duet will be $80 on Craigslist in a very short time. So I'm not really in a super rush to upgrade anything. I don't like the where computers are right now, feels more transitional than ever.
What I've been thinking of is designing a passive, hard wired (with possibly set eq's on certain channels) mixer with my two Summit TLA - 100A's at the end of it for makeup gain, and put that into something like the Apogee Duet, and that would be my basic system.
I've been looking at the Apogee Duet, and if I really wanted it I'd sell something and buy it. The problem is that I'm not sold on any of this stuff. I remember my friend's Dad's studio - the good stuff, MCI 24 track, Neve board, EMT, Allen Sides hand picked vintage Neumanns, and I also remember paying $300 to put 3 MB RAM in my Atari 1040ST so that there was enough memory to play the Santana medley via MIDI.
My point is, I don't think 24/96 is anywhere near where this will stop, and I don't think it's good enough. I also think there's a good chance the Apogee Duet will be $80 on Craigslist in a very short time. So I'm not really in a super rush to upgrade anything. I don't like the where computers are right now, feels more transitional than ever.
What I've been thinking of is designing a passive, hard wired (with possibly set eq's on certain channels) mixer with my two Summit TLA - 100A's at the end of it for makeup gain, and put that into something like the Apogee Duet, and that would be my basic system.
antichef
pornk rock
Ya know, I've been thinking about converters recently. I don't have a top of the line D/A converter, and so it occurs to me that I can't be sure of "converter tests" I find on the internet, because when I play the files back through my system, my own D/A is probably skewing the results. Seems like the only way to reliably hear the effects of a converter is to have a high quality analog system that can play direct to your monitors, listen to it, then run it through your converter and listen to that - realizing that even in this case, there's *no way you can hear just the A/D* since you can't hear "D" - it has to go through at least one more conversion - D/A - before you can hear it. I guess you can compare graphical representations of converted wave forms, for whatever that's worth.
Anyhoo, I hear a lot of folks talk about how the various chips that perform the conversion are not far from one another in terms of quality, and that the quality deltas are so small that most of us would never care - I can believe that (but, again, obtaining and evaluating audio evidence of that is just not within reach).
But one thing I learned when Black Lion Audio worked on my MOTU Traveler is that there's more going on in a converter than just the chip - by that I mean just the analog components that work to get the signal off the wire and feed it to the chip in the case of A/D, and take it from the chip and put it back on the wire in the case of D/A - if those things (resistors, capacitors, etc.) introduce crappiness, then the practical quality of the conversion is worsened. BLA worked on that aspect of my Traveler, and I swear it sounded noticeably better afterward. You'll have to trust me on that - *because, in my opinion, there's no way for me to prove it over the internet*, for the reasons I mentioned above.
2005 was a good year.
Anyhoo, I hear a lot of folks talk about how the various chips that perform the conversion are not far from one another in terms of quality, and that the quality deltas are so small that most of us would never care - I can believe that (but, again, obtaining and evaluating audio evidence of that is just not within reach).
But one thing I learned when Black Lion Audio worked on my MOTU Traveler is that there's more going on in a converter than just the chip - by that I mean just the analog components that work to get the signal off the wire and feed it to the chip in the case of A/D, and take it from the chip and put it back on the wire in the case of D/A - if those things (resistors, capacitors, etc.) introduce crappiness, then the practical quality of the conversion is worsened. BLA worked on that aspect of my Traveler, and I swear it sounded noticeably better afterward. You'll have to trust me on that - *because, in my opinion, there's no way for me to prove it over the internet*, for the reasons I mentioned above.
2005 was a good year.
I use a focusrite mic pre to feed the Lavry AD10, so for sure, any difference I hear is the difference in mic pre's.
pohaku
New member
Technology is always transitioning. Unless a real obvious shift is occurring, at some point you just gotta jump in. I picked up a Lynx Aurora 8 about 2 years ago and I don't see parting with it anytime soon. Works more than fine for my purposes. It replaced an Aardvark Q10 which I had for 4 years before that. I'm much more likely to spend money on instruments, mics, preamps and storage buckets than I am another converter.
