Apogee: 96kHz vs 192kHz?

pianoman1976

pianoman1976

New member
Could someone in the know fill me in on this stuff? I'm in the market for an audio interface to use with Logic. I'm not sure that at this point in my career I need the "best" yet still, I'm drawn to Apogee and RME.

I was really excitied to learn about the Apogee Duet which is advertised as "building on the success of the Ensemble, Apogee's Duet packages the same technology in a 2-channel unit." At the moment I use software instruments via a midi piano and vocals, so 2 channels is enough for me. I figured the Duet would be a great inexensive way for me to have the very best sound.

Yet when reviewing the specs, I see that the Duet is 96kHz, not 192kHz like the Ensemble.

I'm confused. This seems misleading.

("Why not make a 192kHz Duet?" I'm thinking)

If the Duet does not have the same fidelity/audio quality of the Ensemble, I feel it should not be advertised as such. Don't you agree?
 
You really need to always use 192 kHz. If you don't, you won't be able to decode the WWVB time signal to find out when the audio was recorded. :D

But seriously, 192 kHz is pointless.

There's a slight advantage in some cases to using hardware that is capable of 96 kHz, if only because you can be fairly confident the designers didn't put in any analog antialiasing filters (though I wouldn't expect those anyway) and because the converters tend to be newer designs that often have lower noise floors and other improvements over older 44.1/48kHz designs.

There's also a slight advantage to using 48 kHz over 44.1 kHz if you aren't mixing down to a CD, because a fair number of people can hear above 20 kHz---usually not very far above, and mostly at loud volumes, but....

Anything over about 60 kHz sampling rate is just an absurd waste of disk space, and since hardware won't do anything in that range, 88.1 kHz or 96 kHz are acceptable compromises.

Regarding 192 kHz, about the only thing that can be said about it is that it preserves the top of the peak of very short transients slightly more accurately and might be of a slight benefit in terms of increasing accuracy of domain-transform-based filters like pitch detection and correction. Even those benefits are somewhat dubious. :) Basically, 192 kHz is pure marketing comedy.
 
Most of the better designers only recently put out 192kHz units.

It's far beyond the "sound quality" issue - It's trying to make a 192kHz that doesn't sound bad.

192kHz was a pissing match ("Our converters are TWICE as good as..."). It had nothing to do with sound quality. Most of the earlier (and many of the current) 192's sound like crap.
 
pianoman1976 said:
So I gather the kHz spec is not an accurate basis to determine sound quality when choosing an audio interface?
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Massive Master said:
Most of the better designers only recently put out 192kHz units.

It's far beyond the "sound quality" issue - It's trying to make a 192kHz that doesn't sound bad.

192kHz was a pissing match ("Our converters are TWICE as good as..."). It had nothing to do with sound quality. Most of the earlier (and many of the current) 192's sound like crap.
Click to expand...


Things are not always the way they appear on the surface, eh? Most people seem to use
24 bit at 44.1. I have noticed that sometimes my plug-ins sound a little smoother at 48kHz, but I haven't tried 96 yet. 192 seems way over the top to me.
 
omtayslick said:
Most people seem to use 24 bit at 44.1. I have noticed that sometimes my plug-ins sound a little smoother at 48kHz, but I haven't tried 96 yet. 192 seems way over the top to me.
Click to expand...

Completely agree. I have my Duet set up such that I'm running at 24-bit, but always at either 44.1k or 48k sample rate.

To the OP: focus on the quality of the conversion along with a solid unit with solid drivers. You'll find that in the Apogee. The 192k stuff is fluff.
 
Almost every poll I see of full-time industry professionals, you find anywhere between 70 and 80% record in 24-bit at the target rate.

If you can't make the target rate sound absolutely spectacular, upping the sample rate isn't going to do a thing.
 
24/48

I have a RME Fireface-800 and record most of the time at 24bit at 48.

Sometimes the higher rates but vary rarely

when you go to the higher rates you start loose some recording channels
the Octamic pre when used at 92 uses ADAT port 1 for channels 1-4 amd ADAT port 2 for channels 5-8

at 196 you only get the Firefaces inputs and outputs I believe
the Fireface 800 will be able to use all inputs regardless of sample rate.


but at 48 I only need one ADAT port so the other ADAT port can have another octamic pre on it for a extra 8 channels
 
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