Are Interface Upgrades Worth it?

Nola

Nola

Well-known member
I have a Focusrite 18i8. It seems fine.
A lot of my friends are upgrading their interfaces. Personally, I can't justify it.

If I were to upgrade, what improvement would I actually notice? Just trying to understand the point of doing this and weigh if it is worth it.

I use external preamps already and plug them into the FR line input. So the preamps are not the issue. At that point it would be a convertor upgrade only, right? And is there any real benefit of that to a home recorder?
 
i did a thread like this, same thing except mine was just an old interface.

for HR do the converters get ROI?

you have the pres and mics. ...

the only thing that interests me would be the Apollo stuff that can do real time plugs and all that. ..but again thats only for tracking.

Once mixing/mastering they all do that.

The converter thing is an unknown to me , Ive never had a Crane in the house to compare to anything, or even the old ex-hiend Rosetta stuff.
I know I tried MOTU which are supposedly good and I did not hear anything over my interface, in my room, with my ears.
 
CoolCat said:
i did a thread like this, same thing except mine was just an old interface.

for HR do the converters get ROI?

you have the pres and mics. ...

the only thing that interests me would be the Apollo stuff that can do real time plugs and all that. ..but again thats only for tracking.

Once mixing/mastering they all do that.
Click to expand...

Did you conclude it's not worth it if you have a good pre and good mics? The FR is basically a converter at that point. I don't know if it's a good one or not, but I never noticed issues with it.
 
compare to a couple maybe? try a used from a GC or something, they wont care, take it back.

18i8 man thats new and far from entry. The ADA8200 stuff has that history of equaling the Lynx or something years ago in some shootout.

Usually converters are pretty low on the list arent they?
 
CoolCat said:
Usually converters are pretty low on the list arent they?
Click to expand...

That's what I thought, but I was surprised to see my friends trading FR for "upgrades".

I have pretty good ears, and I'm not sure I could hear the difference between converters.
 
CoolCat said:
sometimes we just want something strange as garrw often said...haha
Click to expand...

I'd rather it be a strange guitar(!)... so I will pass on the interface unless someone can convince me it has any impact for a HR doing just conversions.
 
Unless you move WAY up the scale, like RME's, I doubt you'd be able to hear any difference - unless you are already working in a pro-sounding room (i.e. acoustically near-perfect, $2000+ monitors).
 
The only benefit might be units with very low latency and/or offset of work to produce a low latency workflow despite numerous effects/plugins. As mjb indicated, you have to spend quite a bit of $$$ to really see a noticeable improvement over baseline stuff in today's market.

IMO getting good mics, preamps for the mics, monitors, or top notch software (DAW, VST) is much higher up the scale for most home recorders [perhaps room treatment, but that's case to case]. These are the areas I find most of us can stand to see greatest improvement for a relatively moderate cost. I always keep my ear to the ground for DAW and VST deals, software tends to have deep cut sales more often then newer, decent hardware. Decide what you think you need and set a price point for it, then see what your best options are at that price point. If none of the options are a giant leap forward, then make the best with what you have until you either can spend more or prices come down/quality of the cheaper units goes up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top