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Post by lolo on Jul 23, 2014 4:54:15 GMT -6
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Post by lolo on Jul 23, 2014 5:13:20 GMT -6
Had a bit of a read. Looks quite interesting.
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Post by svart on Jul 23, 2014 6:57:13 GMT -6
MOTU had interesting ideas but they hardly lived up to the expectations. It'd be interesting to see how these are reviewed.
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Post by lolo on Jul 23, 2014 7:02:57 GMT -6
Yeah. This is also what i wondered, if these will be a step up for them esp. the conversion
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Post by jimwilliams on Jul 23, 2014 8:52:34 GMT -6
As usual no listing of the design or parts under the hood. It's like buying a high performance car without the maker telling you about the engine.
All they need to do is list the converter chip sets and analog opamps used. Then you have something to compare with.
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Post by Ward on Jul 23, 2014 11:40:43 GMT -6
I sincerely doubt they'll even be a contender to the likes of Avid's new i/o line and the other serious ones.
MOTU have always catered more to keyboard players and hobbyists than anything else. Everything I've ever heard from MOTU sounded 'chincy'...if you know what I mean.
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Post by svart on Jul 23, 2014 12:58:51 GMT -6
Telling us what parts are used under the hood tells us nothing about the overall quality of the design unfortunately. This is a system, and having a good opamp or AD/DA IC means nothing if the firm/software is written shoddily, etc. There is no way to discern the performance from a couple of buzzword worthy parts.
Plus, it's like saying that a car using forged pistons MUST be as good as any car using forged pistons or like saying a SRT Neon is as good as a Ferrari because they both used a speed sensor made by Bosch.
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Post by lolo on Jul 24, 2014 6:22:07 GMT -6
Lets hope these sound good. Yeah motu were never the best sounding interfaces. Hopefully these are a different story.
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Post by jimwilliams on Jul 24, 2014 9:21:01 GMT -6
Telling us what parts are used under the hood tells us nothing about the overall quality of the design unfortunately. It tells you the limitations of the design. It tells you the depth of the designers. It tells you if they care enough about their customers to not pull blankets over the facts. It tells you if this company is run by bean counters or careing audio professionals. It gives you something, better than nothing. Once chipsets are described, then similar products can be compared to it. While other companies tout their innards, the lack of info on this design tells you something too. |
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Post by tonycamphd on Jul 24, 2014 11:03:21 GMT -6
yes i agree ^
Some single converter chips can run up to 8 channels i believe? this will definitely give an indication to design and it's limitations.
Things like converter chip models/ per channel use, power supply details, "we test at 10K"... are things that designers/manufacturers brag about when they use/implement in a design, and frankly, when they state these things, my ears perc up. This stuff usually represents the diff between the real deal, and the flaccid, cloudy imaged, greyed out conversion that is so ubiquitous.
Converters are not all great ime, maybe it's due to clocking? i don't know, but grab a few of the top notch rigs and live with them a while, they are very different, and some are definitely better than others in very tangible ways.
Also, i'd like to recommend, if and when you do a comparison/shoot out of conversion/interface, use at least the minimum number of tracks you will use in the real world, comparing a single track of conversion is utterly useless(the brilliance of the soundblaster notwithstanding 8), multiple tracks are where most rigs fall down. The Orion 32 uses 4 channels per converter chip, with a so so psu. 1 track sounds great! but multiples kill the noise spec, dynamic range and ? You can hear the clouds come in... well at least i can... and did.
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Post by Ward on Jul 24, 2014 12:47:17 GMT -6
1 track sounds great! but multiples kill the noise spec, dynamic range and ? You can hear the clouds come in... well at least i can... and did. Well said, tonycamphd! Converters/interfaces are the final delivery of your 'sound' in the digital age, so always make sure that THEY are taken care of first before anything else is. The system has got to run like a clock! And yes, get an external clock. |
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Post by svart on Jul 24, 2014 14:08:37 GMT -6
Telling us what parts are used under the hood tells us nothing about the overall quality of the design unfortunately. It tells you the limitations of the design. It tells you the depth of the designers. It tells you if they care enough about their customers to not pull blankets over the facts. It tells you if this company is run by bean counters or careing audio professionals. It gives you something, better than nothing. Once chipsets are described, then similar products can be compared to it. While other companies tout their innards, the lack of info on this design tells you something too. Actually I disagree a lot with this. It tells you nothing more than someone used parts that *might* be used in other quality designs are used in this design. it tells you nothing about them being used *correctly* or in ways that might hamper their quality. Using a "good" IC without proper layout means nothing, etc. I've seen plenty of designs using super slewrate opamps with shoddy decoupling and poor layout that, not surprisingly, don't perform that well. However, I've seen other designs that use what you would probably call "low" to "mid-level" parts that end up with superior performance when the designers have used them with actual care. I don't work on buzzwords, I work on results, and never have I chosen a part for a million dollar design based on "could" or "should". If it doesn't perform to my needs, I don't care if it "should" be awesome based on datasheet specs or not, it's not getting used. Sometimes that means using parts that other people have told me won't work. |
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Post by sceneofdarhyme on Jul 24, 2014 15:16:47 GMT -6
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 16,098 
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Post by ericn on Jul 24, 2014 18:13:08 GMT -6
What Jim said ,
Plus this If a rep or a sales guy was spouting off about a bunch of parts, I knew the piece didn't sound that great.
If a unit sounds great. It sounds great no matter what's inside.
MOTU has this way of changing directions with every knew product series, maybe this time they want to be Apogee , doubt it but who knows.
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Post by gouge on Jul 24, 2014 18:26:23 GMT -6
sabre dac is fairly hitech stuff and would mean it's capable of dsd and 32bit as well as super hi res sample rates if configured to do that. that's a good sign but I reckon it'll be running at lower spec. now just need to adhere to svarts comments on implementation.
at a min though it should spec quite well.
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Post by formatcyes on Jul 24, 2014 22:46:21 GMT -6
I don't think AD/DA makes much difference anymore we have reached the 4th generation any of the new stuff would blow away the first gen and a lot of good music was made with a lot less. Pick what features you want and run with it.
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Post by gouge on Jul 24, 2014 23:57:02 GMT -6
whilst I completely agree that converters chips are all pretty good these days and ic chips are all pretty good these days too. implementation varies greatly and so do the analogue circuits around the converter and that results in things sounding very different and to some a big enough difference to be worthwhile.
I have done blind tests on GS and picked one converter over another 8/10 times. while that is not 90% it is more than enough for me.
have a listen to a ross martin converter compared to a consumer grade setup. I mean they are not even in the same ball park. then compare that to dsd.
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Post by Ward on Jul 25, 2014 8:24:27 GMT -6
Do "super hi res sample rates" really matter to most pros?? I started with PT in the early 90s and still have that 'must conserve hard disk space' mentality, as do most vets I know and call peers. As a result, most of us just say "96K 192K? Shag that crap, you can only hear to 16/khz after 20 years old anyhow so I'll stick with 48Khz sampling rate".
And yes, I know there's a difference... I know that the clocks and the plugz and the dither and with and the bither and the scitter are supposedly better at 96 than 48 but DSP consumption is higher too, so again most of us have that conservative nature taking over.
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Post by tonycamphd on Jul 25, 2014 8:40:00 GMT -6
I don't think AD/DA makes much difference anymore we have reached the 4th generation any of the new stuff would blow away the first gen and a lot of good music was made with a lot less. Pick what features you want and run with it. nope, but you can tell yourself what ever you want i suppose 8) I hate when people say this stuff, to be clear, if you think a reasonably implemented 4-8 channel chip on a single power supply(which is a lot of stuff) is going to compete with a single chip/single supply configuration, you dreaming... sorry, the headroom, dynamic range, noise etc all come into play when using more than a single track, when these guys spec their chips in perfect single tone conditions at 1k, it's not real world, its number fudging appeasement for mid level recordists, which i'm trying very hard NOT to be. Get some rigs and live with them a bit, i just did some major testing on conversion rigs this past year, and the diffs in quality were VERY real. Also, JW's assertions are spot on IMO. No company is going to spend the high $ on top notch shit, and then carelessly throw it into any circuit, and if they did, they'd be exposed quickly. |
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Post by henge on Jul 25, 2014 8:48:00 GMT -6
Do "super hi res sample rates" really matter to most pros?? I started with PT in the early 90s and still have that 'must conserve hard disk space' mentality, as do most vets I know and call peers. As a result, most of us just say "96K 192K? Shag that crap, you can only hear to 16/khz after 20 years old anyhow so I'll stick with 48Khz sampling rate". And yes, I know there's a difference... I know that the clocks and the plugz and the dither and with and the bither and the scitter are supposedly better at 96 than 48 but DSP consumption is higher too, so again most of us have that conservative nature taking over. Great now I have to worry about bither and scitter...fucking digital. |
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Post by svart on Jul 25, 2014 8:48:15 GMT -6
Do "super hi res sample rates" really matter to most pros?? I started with PT in the early 90s and still have that 'must conserve hard disk space' mentality, as do most vets I know and call peers. As a result, most of us just say "96K 192K? Shag that crap, you can only hear to 16/khz after 20 years old anyhow so I'll stick with 48Khz sampling rate". And yes, I know there's a difference... I know that the clocks and the plugz and the dither and with and the bither and the scitter are supposedly better at 96 than 48 but DSP consumption is higher too, so again most of us have that conservative nature taking over. The problem is that we (consumers in general) focus on those buzzword worthy marketing statements. "192khz!", "24bits!", "super high speed opamps!!!" etc, etc, but other things matter just as much if not more, and this makes the problem even worse, because other manufacturers see these things and start designing and marketing by using the same buzzwords because that's what people come to expect. So yeah, you'll see these things with the best parts, implemented poorly. Clocking matters. Take a generic ADC or DAC and feed it a great clock and it'll work better than a "super-duper converter IC" every day of the week if that mega ADC is clocked by something mediocre. Case in point.. Timeline/Teac/Tascam MX2424. I had one. Sounded like shit. It used the best parts available at the time, OPA2604 opamps on every I/O, Elna Silmic caps, highest quality AKM converters of the era, etc. Still sounded like crap. Strident top, muffled midrange. Now, I have an SSL Alphalink. Midlevel NJM opamps(don't remember which ones but they weren't super-duper grade), generic panny caps, midlevel CODEC converters(don't remember which ones but these weren't super audiophool grade either) and it sounds better than a ton of others out there. I didn't compare clock sources, nor did I do much investigation beyond looking inside, but the SSL layout was much better in terms of pretty much every aspect. Does this mean that SSL doesn't know what they are doing because they were able to use much cheaper and "lower" class parts? Not by my experience. It means that they did it right all the way through rather than just plopping down the "best" of everything and expecting miracles. |
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Post by warren on Jul 25, 2014 8:52:46 GMT -6
Do "super hi res sample rates" really matter to most pros?? I started with PT in the early 90s and still have that 'must conserve hard disk space' mentality, as do most vets I know and call peers. As a result, most of us just say "96K 192K? Shag that crap, you can only hear to 16/khz after 20 years old anyhow so I'll stick with 48Khz sampling rate". And yes, I know there's a difference... I know that the clocks and the plugz and the dither and with and the bither and the scitter are supposedly better at 96 than 48 but DSP consumption is higher too, so again most of us have that conservative nature taking over. 48 here too. And I thought we can really only distinguish up to like 60+K or something like that, anyways anything above that is moot. |
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Post by svart on Jul 25, 2014 8:59:20 GMT -6
Do "super hi res sample rates" really matter to most pros?? I started with PT in the early 90s and still have that 'must conserve hard disk space' mentality, as do most vets I know and call peers. As a result, most of us just say "96K 192K? Shag that crap, you can only hear to 16/khz after 20 years old anyhow so I'll stick with 48Khz sampling rate". And yes, I know there's a difference... I know that the clocks and the plugz and the dither and with and the bither and the scitter are supposedly better at 96 than 48 but DSP consumption is higher too, so again most of us have that conservative nature taking over. 48 here too. And I thought we can really only distinguish up to like 60+K or something like that, anyways anything above that is moot. I think in these cases, people who "distinguish" these high rates usually listen to A/B tracks of single sources back to back. give them a longer period of time between the A and B versions and they are much less likely to pick out which is which. Rarely are they able to actually pick out a high bitrate mix out of the blue, regardless of what they say their abilities are. Even then, if it were different performances of the same source with different bitrates they have a much harder time distinguishing the bitrates/depths. Honestly i think it's a lot of bragging and bravado that drives these types of things. Nobody who pays me to record them has ever asked me to go from 24/44.1 to something higher. In fact, I get a LOT of requests to "dirty" the sound up, usually more than I'm comfortable with, so what does it matter at that point? |
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Post by tonycamphd on Jul 25, 2014 9:27:41 GMT -6
Do "super hi res sample rates" really matter to most pros?? I started with PT in the early 90s and still have that 'must conserve hard disk space' mentality, as do most vets I know and call peers. As a result, most of us just say "96K 192K? Shag that crap, you can only hear to 16/khz after 20 years old anyhow so I'll stick with 48Khz sampling rate". And yes, I know there's a difference... I know that the clocks and the plugz and the dither and with and the bither and the scitter are supposedly better at 96 than 48 but DSP consumption is higher too, so again most of us have that conservative nature taking over. The problem is that we (consumers in general) focus on those buzzword worthy marketing statements. "192khz!", "24bits!", "super high speed opamps!!!" etc, etc, but other things matter just as much if not more, and this makes the problem even worse, because other manufacturers see these things and start designing and marketing by using the same buzzwords because that's what people come to expect. So yeah, you'll see these things with the best parts, implemented poorly. Clocking matters. Take a generic ADC or DAC and feed it a great clock and it'll work better than a "super-duper converter IC" every day of the week if that mega ADC is clocked by something mediocre. Case in point.. Timeline/Teac/Tascam MX2424. I had one. Sounded like shit. It used the best parts available at the time, OPA2604 opamps on every I/O, Elna Silmic caps, highest quality AKM converters of the era, etc. Still sounded like crap. Strident top, muffled midrange. Now, I have an SSL Alphalink. Midlevel NJM opamps(don't remember which ones but they weren't super-duper grade), generic panny caps, midlevel CODEC converters(don't remember which ones but these weren't super audiophool grade either) and it sounds better than a ton of others out there. I didn't compare clock sources, nor did I do much investigation beyond looking inside, but the SSL layout was much better in terms of pretty much every aspect.
Does this mean that SSL doesn't know what they are doing because they were able to use much cheaper and "lower" class parts?
Not by my experience. It means that they did it right all the way through rather than just plopping down the "best" of everything and expecting miracles. i don't disagree with a lot of what your saying, but the bold above just means that they skimped the conversion quality to save a few bucks, why not just put the best in a good design, and turn a quality product to GREAT, and own the industry? Bean counters, thats why, it's cutting off your nose to spite your face imo. |
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Post by tonycamphd on Jul 25, 2014 9:44:27 GMT -6
48 here too. And I thought we can really only distinguish up to like 60+K or something like that, anyways anything above that is moot. I think in these cases, people who "distinguish" these high rates usually listen to A/B tracks of single sources back to back. give them a longer period of time between the A and B versions and they are much less likely to pick out which is which. Rarely are they able to actually pick out a high bitrate mix out of the blue, regardless of what they say their abilities are. Even then, if it were different performances of the same source with different bitrates they have a much harder time distinguishing the bitrates/depths. Honestly i think it's a lot of bragging and bravado that drives these types of things. Nobody who pays me to record them has ever asked me to go from 24/44.1 to something higher. In fact, I get a LOT of requests to "dirty" the sound up, usually more than I'm comfortable with, so what does it matter at that point? I utterly disagree with your whole mods, upgrades don't matter narrative, and thats fine, but this is where you and i have a problem svart, my personal experience tells me you are wrong, but i don't suggest you have a psychological problem, or can't hear do i? As soon as you disagree with someone, you start throwing words like ego, bragging/bravado, asserting whoever can't hear, now Jim williams is hooked on buzzwords, that's passive aggressive BS... it's insulting and lame, do you really think Jim Williams is hooked on buzz words dude? He's an audio electronics legend. Have an opinion without projecting that passive aggressive BS, i'm sick of it personally. |
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