Antelope Discrete 4 versus Scarlett? Worth upgrading?

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BoneDigger

New member
I am currently using a Scarlett 18i8 with a Shure Sm7b and a Blue Bluebird for recording Americana and country music. My DAW is Mixcraft 8 Pro and I have a nice liquid cooled tower PC with Windows 10. My monitors are Yamaha 8".

Would the new Antelope Discrete 4 be likely to give me noticeably better recordings than my Scarlett? They can be pre-ordered for around $900, and they seem pretty cool, but I'm just not sure if I would be likely to see a serious upgrade in sound quality?

Would you go for the new Discrete 4 or stick with the Scarlett?
 
I have no personal experience with Antelope products, much less that specific model. I doubt that many home recordists do, since Antelope is marketed more towards the professional crowd. But Antelope are highly regarded for their converter quality. No idea about their preamps, but I would be willing to assume that they'd be very clean and accurate. I'd recommend that you buy one from a retailer with a good return policy, and give it a workout first-hand. If it revolutionizes your sound quality, keep it. If not, send it back.

It's a very appealing box though. If I were in the market for a new interface, I'd definitely have an eye on that one.
 
The features and price make it borderline esoterica for me. There's another thread around here on the progress (or not, perhaps) of AIs, and while this is priced above the lot that many of us get by with, it's still, IMHO, the kind of thing that, boy, I would have to have everything else really together to think it *might* make a difference.

I like [MENTION=22368]Tadpui[/MENTION]'s idea - get one and try it out.

P.S. Do you have any links to what you record? How do you get by with those 2 mics? Is it all track-at-a-time recording?
 
If you ever used any Aardvark Audio products...then you know what/where Antelope Audio evolved from.
The Ardsync clock boxes always got top praise from pros, and they were pretty reasonably priced and performed better than some more expensive products at the time.

The Antelope stuff, yes...it's definitely pro-end top-shelf quality. Not something very common in the typical home-rec world, but I wouldn't say it would be unusual to see it in a more serious home project studio.

I've used the Ardsync boxes. Still have a couple of them that I hold as backups, but I moved to a Lucid SSG because it had more complete features all in one package, and more robust I/O.

I've looked at some of the Antelope products, and if/when the time comes that I want/need to move to new converters...Antelope would be on the list, because they make 32 channel converters in one box.
I think this Antelope Discrete 4 is probably their attempt to bring in some of the home-rec crowd, since they usually look for smaller, combi interfaces like this.
It's really up to you if you think $900 is worth it...but I don't think you would be disappointed with their products.
 
As others have said, the Antelope range is pretty high end and aimed at pro studios.

However, even so, I suspect any improvement in sound quality would be relatively subtle compared to other things in your studio, notably acoustic treatment, choice of microphones and quality of monitoring. Unless those items are "pro quality" now, that's where I'd put my money rather than a new interface.
 
I own Antelope Audio Synergy Core Discrete 8, but previously I had UR22 from Steinberg - I had noisy preamps and thought it was a guitar pick up issues, after Antelope preamps, the signal is so clean and trasparent, I know it is different price range, but worth every penny!
 
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