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Umbra

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  1. Clock stability is mostly a myth too. Crystal oscillators are accurate to infinitesimal fractions of a second, and the errors correlate with frequencies in the GHz range.Do you have a source for that one? I'd like to run the calculations myself before I accept that. But seriously, I have trouble believing your mp3 story. At 64 if someone can't tell the difference someone doesn't know what to listen for. 128 is harder, and beyond 128 it depends entirely on the source material if there is any difference that can be heard or not. A piano recording isn't the best material to test hearing the differences between an mp3 and a wave. It also depends on the alg. used for the conversion. If someone can consistanly point out a 256 vs. a wave I'd be impressed but at 128 I could see someone being able to identify the mp3 depending on the source material. Often cymbals are the give away, they tend to get smeared. Anyway I agree that the majority of the difference is in the 'other' things in an audio interface not in the converter per say, but essentially what your saying is that every interface should sound nearly identical if they are all transparent. I don't think that's the case and I think the majority of the audio world would disagree with you.
  2. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with anyone per say but my experience this week has been as such: Replaced a delta 1010 which I have been using for the last 5 years with a MR816 CSX. I noticed pretty much right away that the high end sounded clearer. I noticed it in a couple of ways, mp3's sounded worse on the MR816, the defects in the mp3 conversion seemed to stand out more, also while recording high freq instruments like keyboard the high end of the sound sounds less hazy. Only thoughts I have is that the clock is better giving me less aliasing issues. Am I 100% level matched? No but it's pretty close, within a one or two db anyway. Same monitors, same listening position, same sample rates and bits, no changes to accoustic treatment. I'm also not using particularly high end monitors. They are Events that are about 5 or 6 years old that were around $850 total. Make what you wish of my experience. Are we talking a world changing difference, no of course not, would either one work well enough to produce something pro or near pro level, probably. And you may want to double check the signal diagrams for bypassing the preamps. Not all interfaces bypass the pre-amps just because you plug a TRS/TS into the jack. With the MR816 the only way to bypass the pre's is to use the two insert jacks or use the digital inputs. With the analog inputs the signal is routed to the preamp regardless of the cable type used. The lack of bypass has been verified by steinberg on their forum. I have no clue on the Profire. And there are other reasons to pay more tha $100/converter in an audio interface other than just the converters themselves. Things like on board dsp, pre-amps, digital inputs, stable low latency drivers, etc. do raise the price of an audio interface.
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