Best audio interface for £800?

  • Thread starter Thread starter sach160
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sach160

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Hi,

I hope I can pick a few brains here -

I am looking for an audio interface to go through a laptop for playing live and recording (would like something not rack, but box like - easy to travel with and use live).

I need 2 mic pre-amp/inputs for vocals (dynamkic mics) and 1 for electric guitar input (also would like 2 midi in but not essential).

I don't really need any dsp in the AI - unless it's as good as the best sofware signal processors I'd rather use software (i'll be using a new tl-60 top spec laptop so hopefully it can cope with putting real time effects on 3 signals simultaneously live - am i being too optimistic here?)

Does anyone have any suggestions for this price (if I ordered something from the US I'd have approx $1400)? I've searched the net... RME seem highly favoured - is this my best bet?

Any advice/opinions would be much appreciated, thanks.
 
BigRay said:
Lynx AES 16. Widely regarded as the best in the business.
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Gag. It's PCI. You do know your next computer probably won't have PCI slots unless you pay extra, and that by five or ten years from now, you won't be able to get a computer with PCI, right? :D (This is coming from someone who already had to sell a PCI interface because I couldn't use it in my new quad G5.)

I wouldn't pay $100 for that card, wonderful as the sound quality might be. When they have a PCI Express version, it might be worth considering, but in general, internal cards are a short-term investment since internal system busses can't be easily adapted to newer systems as the technology evolves.

Spend your money on a good FireWire interface. In the long term, you'll thank me.
 
...no digital equipment is future proof, so we use what gives us the best quality at the present. There is no firewire interface that can compete with the lynx in terms of quality. none. the aes 16 is just a suggestion, but really any of the lynx products are top of the line. An industry standard.

as far as firewire..

http://www.lynxstudio.com/aurora/index.html

dgatwood said:
Gag. It's PCI. You do know your next computer probably won't have PCI slots unless you pay extra, and that by five or ten years from now, you won't be able to get a computer with PCI, right? :D (This is coming from someone who already had to sell a PCI interface because I couldn't use it in my new quad G5.)

I wouldn't pay $100 for that card, wonderful as the sound quality might be. When they have a PCI Express version, it might be worth considering, but in general, internal cards are a short-term investment since internal system busses can't be easily adapted to newer systems as the technology evolves.

Spend your money on a good FireWire interface. In the long term, you'll thank me.
Click to expand...
 
sach160 is looking for an interface to use with his laptop so PCI (or PCIe) cards wouldn't work. Otherwise I too have heard good things about Lynx. I would suggest sach160 looks into the E-MU 1616M. That's what I'm using and I'm extremely pleased... it consists of a PCMCIA Cardbus card (the equivalent of a PCI interface for laptops) that connects to a breakout box via an Ethernet type cable. The breakout box has two exceptional mic pre's built in, as well as MIDI I/O, ADAT, S/PDIF, etc.
 
RME Fireface 800 is the best of the best in the firewire industry.
it has a lot of ins and outs and has wery good ad/da converters. it has 4 preamps, one of them has speacker simulation even...
RME RULEZZ...way better than MOTU
 
thanks for the suggestions guys...

for the rme fireface 800, any idea how good the preamps are, say compared to my john hardy m1 pre? or would the 1616m have better prs?

the quality of the pres is important to me, as well as zero latency of course!

any other suggestions of AIs i should check out?

cheers
 
sach160 said:
thanks for the suggestions guys...

for the rme fireface 800, any idea how good the preamps are, say compared to my john hardy m1 pre? or would the 1616m have better prs?

the quality of the pres is important to me, as well as zero latency of course!

any other suggestions of AIs i should check out?

cheers
Click to expand...
The preamps in either the E-MU or the RME should be comparable but eventually you would probably want to add a channel or two of better-grade outboard preamp(s)/channel strip(s), etc. BTW the RME has four mic pre's... you indicated you were looking for something with two. The difference in price is considerable, about $500 versus $1400 so you need to evaluate your needs and buy accordingly. Unless you've got money to burn, I guess.

And please, overlook the "THIS ROCKS!" or "THIS RULES" commentaries and look at the features as they exist. For the record, E-MU, MOTU, RME, etc. all make fine-quality equipment and you should purchase based on what you need a specific piece of equipment to do for you.
 
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