PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

yes i know that, that's why i compared it with the a16 ultra (the price of the A16U is about the same as a Multiface+PCI card)

i know that it cant be used without the pci card.

that's why i compared the 2 in the first place, a multiface+pci card would roughly cost as much as the a16 ultra interface.

On 2004-08-07 08:42, dArKr3zIn wrote:
I've heard that they both use the same or very similar converters. I don't have an A16U but I have a Multiface and Cardbus/PCI cards and I can say it sounds very nice. However, remember that the converters cannot be used without the soundcard.

That's correct and definately should be factored in. I had no system performance issues when the Hammerfall dsp card and a Pulsar1 and Pulsar2 were all sharing the same PCI bus, but I'll have to admit that moving SFP into another machine made Logic a lot happier on this box. I typically load up all 10 dsps about halfway through a project and they stay that way.

On 2004-08-07 06:42, lysergide wrote:
1. Rme's sound quality perhaps sound a little better than the a16u.. (?)

1. I agree with what dArKr3zIn wrote in that they most likely are very similar. Also remember that the Multiface isn't the top of the line for RME, they have MADI and Adat interfaces, and also the new Fireface (which is based on 'regular' firewire rather than 'hammerfall dsp card' firewire). I've found that the Pulsar2's XLR out actually has more output than the Multiface-it will start soft clipping my board's pre's with almost no gain if the signal is nice & hot coming out, but routing to one of the multiface's outputs with everything else normalized in Totalmix I find I give about 8-9db gain on the pre to get the clip lite to start winking at me. Again I'm not doing a lot of classical or like jazz guitar recording here
I suspect that the main reason for the lower voltage is the fact that its intended to be powered off firewire.

On 2004-08-07 06:42, lysergide wrote:
2. the multiface has the option for the cardbus - laptop connection.. this is a very big advantage for future expanding isnt it? i couldn't do this with the a16u...

2. That's why I chose the Multiface over an Adi8-pro or the A16U. Right now I use logic PC still and while I have access to an Sx dongle and I've tried Sonar, its quite likely I'll wind up moving over to a G5 Powerbook (if they ever emerge) or perhaps just the desktop. Its also just as possible I move to another PC that has only PCI Express slots (I'll probably wait until PCI is mostly phased out, transition boards like the old PCI/ISA combinations caused more problems with configuring onboard pro audio and graphics devices than I cared to endure.)

not a lot of helpful info, but here it goes: i got the Multiface for the laptop and (an old) A8 for scope.

* i just compared the two, playing a song on the laptop, a stereo channel coming out of the RME's TRS jacks, one stereo pair going to the A8 (through scope i must add... (RME >adat> Scope >adat> A8). these both went to a mackie mixer. on the mixer i pushed the '+4' button as the A8 has -10dB output (RME +4 (jumpers inside the box)). so now the levels were approximately the same.
A/B'ing the channels made me come to this (very unscientific and personal) conclusion: the RME sounded 'cleaner' (might one say 'detail'?) and the A8 a bit muddier, but with more 'umppfffh'. i guess the RME would do a better job if you want to do delicate recordings (classical, accoustic, voice,...). for my electronic mayhem... i wouldn't give a rat's arse. it will all go through the grinder

* on a few occasions, i took the laptop to a friend's, together with the RME and A8. connected the A8 directly to the RME, and had 16 mono in/out to do a 2" tape dump to a soft tracker (ableton). that was fun and easy and sounded just nice.

* so, in short, there isn't a lot of difference between the rme and A8 (nothing that a bit of eq/level can cure), so the newer A16 U will definitely sound great compared to the RME (if not better).
on the other hand: how would you connect the A16 to a laptop, should you get one? there ain't a lot of options... the RME digiface is one

too bad the A8 doesn't have a +4/-10 switch and the RME needs to be opened to change settings. i suppose the A16U does have +4 output?


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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: borg on 2004-08-07 10:24 ]</font>