Lynx Aurora (n)

Sonics are like beauty, in the mind of the beholder, best to get the tools you prefer and get to work!

For me converter wars are over. I don’t question the Aurora sonics at all: just track and mix and trust what I am hearing.

I meant what one appreciates.

There is a big difference between executing a bad tracking session and the actual quality of the gear/converters.

If a person can’t hear bad tracking, the gear is the least of their concerns.

Try the aurora and see what you think: different horses etc.!

Nice post, yeah I don't think it's A-weighted the results of the science review / my analysis aren't close. 

Ultimately the rat race of cyclical upgrading has to end for me, this thread has once again piqued my curiosity and it will either lead to an unnecessary upgrade or more time wasting. End of the day amazing records have been cut on far inferior conversion than the Apollo X, also the reviews are generally positive from consumers and well known AE's alike.

Avoid the shiny new interface, c'mon you can do it Zarc'y.. That's a good Zarcy.

@zarconis it is a rat race. I stuck with motu because the da is good and I’m in the box and need usb. If I were hitting that warmed over for lack of a better word ad 5 times in a loop back, I would have an issue. If it breaks or the drivers stop working, I’ll be forced to go RME, which I like even less soundwise but is rock solid until I get a new computer. Or maybe the lower fi but cool sounding SPL Crimson but again even less reliable drivers than MOTU.

I should probably get the interface with the best drivers and a great SPDIF/AES DAC

Agree 1000% on that point. 

If the whole basic idea of a modern converter is to get out of the way and "sound transparent" then really there shouldn't be a massive difference in tone. The rub is there are varying degrees of "transparent" and some people might prefer one shade over another... 

French vanilla vs cherry vanilla vs old school vanilla etc. 

Obviously the "transparent" converters are in a different category then something like a Burl which is designed to actually have a sound and impart coloration.

Any modern converter, something made in the last handful of years is miles better then what was available in the 90s and early 2000s. Yet people made albums with Panasonic DATs and Digi 888's... and some of 'em still even sound pretty good! 

This is all kinda funny to me. 

Like I said in the other thread, I've done a handful of converter shootouts over the years. One thing I've learned is that to actually glean useful information you really need to run alignment tones, get 1kHz to within .1dB on each box to have an even playing field. Otherwise its kinda useless information. 

Specs don't really matter. Dynamic range?! Ya gotta be kidding me. What's the real world dynamic range of a Vox AC30 or Orange? How about that singer even before we smash 'em with a limiter? Way less then 120dB right? 

I won't sit here and say that in actual blind shootouts I don't hear differences, because I do... but its never been, at least to me as world flipping as some people claim them to be. If anything once level matched an awful lot of stuff is extremely similar and damn near impossible to pick reliably.

The real world test for any converter for me... Is do I get back what I put into it? 

I've done my drums up, say 8 or 10 mics and I listen on the console... then it goes to the converters and come back? Do they still sound the same? Or do I get back something different or maybe even slightly offensive? 

At the end of the line most of the subtleties get tossed out the window. When someone listens to your song playing back from say, their tablet bluetoothed to the soundbar in their TV room, how good is that DA converter in the Bose soundbar?  

it’s not just converter transparency, it’s spaciousness and depth as well. I preferred my symphony mkii and N to Apollo BF and X.

We are, after all creating in many cases the illusion of soundstage, (unless you have a stereo 2 mike recording) so clarity of signal is critical, but added depth and spaciousness open up that soundstage.

He’s not saying the DA creates the soundstage, he’s saying it reveals it. It’s easier to build the illusion you’re wanting to (aka mixing) if you can hear what’s going on clearly.

End user monitoring is wildly variant and largely irrelevant to me as a mixer. Good monitoring let’s me do a better mix, and that better mix will sound better on phone speakers or a $50k HiFi rig.

Bingo, I am just talking about my direct user experiences: numbers on paper tell you very little about what experiencing a piece of gear first hand is like.

I know what they meant but it's useless if you're hearing artificially inflated depth that won't translate (not saying they are mind due), hence the term "accurate picture". A converter at this level isn't going to obscure clarity at the mixing stage, if it does one needs to throw said converter in the bin or report it faulty. 

The second bit is just wrong, the "missing fundamental" ring a bell? We do that to cater to these devices with less than adequate reproduction. We massage octave harmonics to do the same and then squish crap so we don't overwhelm them, all of this is detrimental to a $50K rig with a full range. You should bring up your points with a proper mastering engineer and see what they say..

There's a fair bit of difference between recording professionally for others and doing whatever one believe's sounds good for their own self satisfaction. Thankfully, nowadays I only need concern myself with the latter..

Same here, I don't believe you know what you're talking about. Sometimes a steered conversation can lead to a learning experience (which benefits me). I've learned a lot from Svart over the years, many AE's and EE's.. I have been corrected on more than one occasion and I'm happy to learn.

Keeping an open mind definitely helps one expand, ultimately though I'm not here to convince anyone of anything. It doesn't help me to change your opinion neither does it matter as you stated. Also subjective taste can't be dictated and I'd never even attempt it, we all like what we like..

Actually I said neither of those things, that's a pretty wild assumption.

My point is we can sit in the studio all week long with our fancy pants converters and multi thousand dollar monitoring rigs... Sweating the smallest details over & over again until we have a brain aneurysm and die from choice paralysis.

Once the song gets into the real world all that shit we sweated? It goes right out the window.

Absolutely end listener monitoring is all over the map. But you also have to know the intended audience for a given production... and nobody is ever going to hear all the minute details we hear in the studio. They don't have the resolution and certainly not the knowledge of how the sausage was made.

After all, we know where the bodies are buried and they don't. Kinda like hiring out mixing... outsider comes in fresh and doesn't know what happened in tracking. They can only react to what's there.

These days most converters sound really good. Like really really good.

If you can't make a great record on an Apollo or Lynx or Motu... Or even a presonus... it's really not the converters fault.

Converters don't add space and depth and all those flaky BS nuances. That comes from whoever's piloting the plane. Don't crash! 

And don't panic either.

Just my 2 cents but changing preamps? The front end makes a way bigger difference in my experience.

It's cool, believe me.. As far as heated debates go this is pretty tame .

Also I do actually agree with you LOL.. Yeah, improvements to a mix can translate universally even if they don't pop out on less than ideal speakers. I get you.. Although you have to hear what's wrong to make them in the first place.

Look, all I'm saying in a nutshell is I'm not worried about having an MOTU or an Apollo X. They are great interfaces and I won't suffer just because I don't have an Aurora. Personally If I thought it would have made such a dramatic difference to me personally I would have spent my Shelford money elsewhere. It's the Neve, API, Trident discussion in converter form..

Okay, we good?