Review Steinberg AXR4T
Posted: Sat Apr 10, 2021 6:04 am
Hi,
here is my review of this unit after one year of use.
The HfM Nürnberg was renovated for around 40 millions euros, got a new great sounding concert hall and i visited about 140 concerts within 1,5 years. I got very unhappy about my room and the equipment because they didn‘t sound like real instruments and rooms at all. I used the Sonic Core A16 Ultra as converter, in the past i had various RME interfaces, Babyface, Fireface, Prism Sound Orpheus and Prism Sound Lyra. RME Interfaces are great but i don‘t like their sound philosophy. I bought once their flagship Fireface UFX+ used and cheap and sold it after some days. My monitors were Geithains RL933K1.
I ended with the following setup: Xite-1, Steinberg AXR4T, HEDD Type 30 and HEDDphone.
Steinberg AXR4T is interesting for Scope users for 3 reasons.
1. It offers sample rate conversion on AES/EBU. You can run the Xite-1 on a different sample rate and set up both interfaces as master! So if you think that the Xite-1 sounds best as master and on a certain sample rate, you can activate the SRC on AES/EBU. You have 8 channels of AES/EBU, so you can use several pieces of hardware with different sample rates together with just one breakout cable. You hardly hear a negative sonic impact of the SRC, but you have no clock sync issues with asynchronous running gear.
2. You can run the Steinberg AXR4T on 192KHz master and slave the Xite-1 to it per ADAT with 96KHz or 48KHz. So you receive audio from Xite-1 per AES/EBU, resample it and hear at 192KHz, but send the clock to Xite-1 per ADAT. If you have to make a project at 192KHz and all your setup is at 192KHz, you can still use the Xite-1 as slave, no SRC is needed in this case.
3. The sound quality is unbelievable. Natural und relaxed, with extremely high resolution. If you are a sound designer, you are used to suddenly occuring loud or harsh sounds. With Steinberg AXR4T i can play with the Modular much longer without getting tired.
Steinberg AXR4T pros:
A step to a real life-like sound, a game changer! I know that the conversion is not completely 32bit, it is simply spoken a little bit more 32bit compaired to 24bit, an improvement in a certain state of the conversion design. But it is obviously enough to achieve a next level of conversion. If you once tried to optimize your equipment with better cables or PSUs etc., you hear the difference of a 32bit converter immidiately. It is something different than better cables or PSUs, from more or less ferrit beads on power cables, from more or less EMI and RFI. It is also something different from aspects like low or high end extension, thickness or thinness, cleanness or dynamics of the sound. Compaired to 24bit interfaces it sounds pleasing, less digital. You maybe will not perceive the difference as better if you make and like electronic music, but you will of course perceive the difference as better, true and believable if you hear recordings of real acoustic instruments.
I turned the Steinberg AXR4T on the first time and thought: „This is something new, this is different, i will keep it.“
- Works perfectly with an optical Thunderbolt 2 cable from Corning, available in 5,5m, 10m, 30m and 60m. The cables are fully optical, no cupper wire, you avoid the EMI and are independent of the distance to the computer.
- Four Yamaha mic pres with digital gain control allow the use of ambisonics microphones which demand exactly the same gain on all inputs.
- very good headphone sound
- very good build quality
- easy to use user interface and mixer software
- can be accessed directly from Cubendo
- Stackable up to three units. The USB version of this unit can‘t be stacked. It was listed as stackable in many online shops but it is not true. Also the solutions for a fully optical connection to your computer or galvanic isolation from your computer are different on USB than on Thunderbolt.
- rock-solid four-pin Neutrik power plug
- analog volume controls on headphone outs. I like it very much because i‘m always using the same reference volume level.
Steinberg AXR4T cons:
- The most annoying thing: The interface sounds different on different sample rates. The higher the more airy, with more space between instruments.
-Also annoying: The sound varies slightly with different activated options and routing. For example you dim the luminous buttons and the LCD and the sound becomes more refined.
- You can dim the luminous buttons and the LCD but in the dark room they are still too bright.
- Unfortunately no balanced headphone output. I would prefer one balanced output to two unbalanced.
- The unit is huge (deep) and at the same the upper side of the case has so many big holes for better cooling, that you are afraid of drinking and even speaking near it. It looks like metal silk, maybe the silk in the items description refers to the case and not to the mic pres. You have to hide the unit in a rack and leave enough space because it gets hot similar like Xite-1.
- The PSU is an external Yamaha PA-700 with a long, non-coaxial cable, 1,2m of audiphile‘s nightmare. I dislike it more than Merkel and Löw together. I would replace it with a coaxial Sommer Cable SC-Vector Plus RCB 1.6L/7.3 or buy or build a better PSU. I built another PSU with a thick aluminium case and minimal distance to the unit.
Also this PSU is bigger than nessesary because it is redundant. You might need the redundancy with network gear, but for audio i would sacrifice it for a better PSU.
- You can use either ADAT B or AES/EBU, so you have only ADAT A if you use AES/EBU.
- ADAT and AES/EBU are switched off at sample rates above 192KHz. Actually some may desire to enjoy a resampled audio input at 384KHz.
Conclusion: This Steinberg flagship will seduce you to invest in better cables, monitors and headphones, improve your room, and hear music instead of making music.
You will never use the converters on the Xite-1 or A16 Ultra again, despite their good sound quality.
here is my review of this unit after one year of use.
The HfM Nürnberg was renovated for around 40 millions euros, got a new great sounding concert hall and i visited about 140 concerts within 1,5 years. I got very unhappy about my room and the equipment because they didn‘t sound like real instruments and rooms at all. I used the Sonic Core A16 Ultra as converter, in the past i had various RME interfaces, Babyface, Fireface, Prism Sound Orpheus and Prism Sound Lyra. RME Interfaces are great but i don‘t like their sound philosophy. I bought once their flagship Fireface UFX+ used and cheap and sold it after some days. My monitors were Geithains RL933K1.
I ended with the following setup: Xite-1, Steinberg AXR4T, HEDD Type 30 and HEDDphone.
Steinberg AXR4T is interesting for Scope users for 3 reasons.
1. It offers sample rate conversion on AES/EBU. You can run the Xite-1 on a different sample rate and set up both interfaces as master! So if you think that the Xite-1 sounds best as master and on a certain sample rate, you can activate the SRC on AES/EBU. You have 8 channels of AES/EBU, so you can use several pieces of hardware with different sample rates together with just one breakout cable. You hardly hear a negative sonic impact of the SRC, but you have no clock sync issues with asynchronous running gear.
2. You can run the Steinberg AXR4T on 192KHz master and slave the Xite-1 to it per ADAT with 96KHz or 48KHz. So you receive audio from Xite-1 per AES/EBU, resample it and hear at 192KHz, but send the clock to Xite-1 per ADAT. If you have to make a project at 192KHz and all your setup is at 192KHz, you can still use the Xite-1 as slave, no SRC is needed in this case.
3. The sound quality is unbelievable. Natural und relaxed, with extremely high resolution. If you are a sound designer, you are used to suddenly occuring loud or harsh sounds. With Steinberg AXR4T i can play with the Modular much longer without getting tired.
Steinberg AXR4T pros:
A step to a real life-like sound, a game changer! I know that the conversion is not completely 32bit, it is simply spoken a little bit more 32bit compaired to 24bit, an improvement in a certain state of the conversion design. But it is obviously enough to achieve a next level of conversion. If you once tried to optimize your equipment with better cables or PSUs etc., you hear the difference of a 32bit converter immidiately. It is something different than better cables or PSUs, from more or less ferrit beads on power cables, from more or less EMI and RFI. It is also something different from aspects like low or high end extension, thickness or thinness, cleanness or dynamics of the sound. Compaired to 24bit interfaces it sounds pleasing, less digital. You maybe will not perceive the difference as better if you make and like electronic music, but you will of course perceive the difference as better, true and believable if you hear recordings of real acoustic instruments.
I turned the Steinberg AXR4T on the first time and thought: „This is something new, this is different, i will keep it.“
- Works perfectly with an optical Thunderbolt 2 cable from Corning, available in 5,5m, 10m, 30m and 60m. The cables are fully optical, no cupper wire, you avoid the EMI and are independent of the distance to the computer.
- Four Yamaha mic pres with digital gain control allow the use of ambisonics microphones which demand exactly the same gain on all inputs.
- very good headphone sound
- very good build quality
- easy to use user interface and mixer software
- can be accessed directly from Cubendo
- Stackable up to three units. The USB version of this unit can‘t be stacked. It was listed as stackable in many online shops but it is not true. Also the solutions for a fully optical connection to your computer or galvanic isolation from your computer are different on USB than on Thunderbolt.
- rock-solid four-pin Neutrik power plug
- analog volume controls on headphone outs. I like it very much because i‘m always using the same reference volume level.
Steinberg AXR4T cons:
- The most annoying thing: The interface sounds different on different sample rates. The higher the more airy, with more space between instruments.
-Also annoying: The sound varies slightly with different activated options and routing. For example you dim the luminous buttons and the LCD and the sound becomes more refined.
- You can dim the luminous buttons and the LCD but in the dark room they are still too bright.
- Unfortunately no balanced headphone output. I would prefer one balanced output to two unbalanced.
- The unit is huge (deep) and at the same the upper side of the case has so many big holes for better cooling, that you are afraid of drinking and even speaking near it. It looks like metal silk, maybe the silk in the items description refers to the case and not to the mic pres. You have to hide the unit in a rack and leave enough space because it gets hot similar like Xite-1.
- The PSU is an external Yamaha PA-700 with a long, non-coaxial cable, 1,2m of audiphile‘s nightmare. I dislike it more than Merkel and Löw together. I would replace it with a coaxial Sommer Cable SC-Vector Plus RCB 1.6L/7.3 or buy or build a better PSU. I built another PSU with a thick aluminium case and minimal distance to the unit.
Also this PSU is bigger than nessesary because it is redundant. You might need the redundancy with network gear, but for audio i would sacrifice it for a better PSU.
- You can use either ADAT B or AES/EBU, so you have only ADAT A if you use AES/EBU.
- ADAT and AES/EBU are switched off at sample rates above 192KHz. Actually some may desire to enjoy a resampled audio input at 384KHz.
Conclusion: This Steinberg flagship will seduce you to invest in better cables, monitors and headphones, improve your room, and hear music instead of making music.
You will never use the converters on the Xite-1 or A16 Ultra again, despite their good sound quality.
