you know kidneys are worth a lot more than a trivial RME card.. you could get a lot for it! dont undersell your kidneys!

 

I have zero complaints with the Babyface, in fact I like it a whole lot. The pres are very clean and if I want a little change I can use my Tonebeast for texture (lucky so lucky me). If I needed more inputs I would probably get the Focusrite OctoPre, hook her up to the Baby and be even more a happy camper. RME +1.

 

You asked for it.... Sold my Apogee Symphony 64 a few weeks after watching this seminar, downloading Ethan's files (read the Youtube description for links), and spending a few days on Gearslutz comparing other converter files.... Ethans comparison begins later in the video (WARNING the EX. music he used was horrendous)...

 

Haha, is that Rusko?!

 

RME - the industry standard

That should say it all.

 

This has nothing to do with pretentiousness, man. The most important aspect of an audio interface is the quality, stable and very functional driver and apps for it and RME delivers the best driver and apps [Totalmix and Digicheck] for all their interfaces. Hardware is also important, but not nearly as much as it used to be. I mean what use is the audio interface that looks nice, have all the features you want from it, sound well, but the drivers have big latency and make your DAW crash?

I'm not rich, not even close [more like making ends meet] but I bought RME HDSP9652 for 300 euro 3 years ago. You can't say that's expensive or pretentious of me. I never had any problems with the ASIO driver since then. I used to use a 100$ Soundplaster card [first mistake I made, thankfully I sold it for good money], then I bought M-Audio Audiophile that cost me another 100E that I'll never get back since I weren't able to sell it. The point: save money and buy something good the first time, with a great driver, apps and support that'll last you a long time and make music!

 

RME makes rock solid cards and interfaces the drivers are solid the hardware is quality and you will spend more money finding your way back to RME than investing in a good interface now as a producer industry professional and all around gear geek i have Apogee, Prism and RME in my rack i use an RME HDSPe AIO card for my sample box (Desktop with Win 7) as well as my older RME 9632 PCI in another plus the UFX and the UC is more or less a scaled back version of that which has Total Mix with RME you're playing with the big boys ... so i can't talk you out of quality gear sounds fresh ...

Good Luck

 

thats a big leap forward in terms of coherence in sound...better DACs give you more hearing resolution and a preciser sound so everything you do isnt far off from studio reality lol...always buy the best interface you can afford *yes*

 

Thanks guys! Just wanted to tell you I ordered it! :dancing: It should arrive in a few days.

I'm all ears, kris! I'll check it, I promise, but I completely agree with Sinewave on the matter! He said it perfectly, and don't know what I could add to his post!
I'm into this from the time soundblasters were extravagant and expensive (that is from the early nineties, yeah I know 'the geezer's fuckin' old, mate!'). I've had my share of experience with a fair number of devices, and I always felt like something's not right. If the sound was cool, and the driver relatively stable, then at least the latency was killing me to the point I could literally light up a cig before I could hear that last piano keystroke in my monitors, and so on... you get the idea!
For all these, I'm doing this upgrade. I do hope it will be a major step forward, but if otherwise I won't be a hypocrite and I'll admit it here!

 

SPL Crimson are using these drivers out of the box and they are working good, very stable for tracking @ 32 samples

 

I have Fireface 800 for about 4-5 years. The card is a monster. You'll never have latency problems even if u load up all the vst plugins u have on your hdd. The quality of the inputs are outstanding. Im recording a gothenburg death metal band with lots of audio ins and the quality is by far the best.
My project is industrial EBM with many vsti and vst plugs. 40 or more channels loaded with instruments and every channel with 4-6 plugs. Not even a crack from letency prespective. About stability believe me never ever crashed or have issues with it. BUT its not only the audio interface. If you are willin to buy this monster go 1st on RME forums check everything related to what gear works best with RME. I will never change this card from my setup.

 

Regarding converters quality. I have an m-audio 2626 and rme UCX. I've made some blind A/B comparisons, after recording the same signal through the same m-audio preamp, parallel through both the m-audio built-in and the UCX's converters. I could easily distinguish between the two, despite volume matching. The UCX-coverted signal was substantially clearer. This is no f*cking illusion, as again, this was a proper blind A/B comparison. Another person involved in the project, who'd been provided with the test files, independently came up with the same conclusions. The preamps on the UCX were also significantly better, as I found through another test. Perhaps there would be less of a difference between UCX and Apogee converters, per the law of diminishing returns. But people claiming converters do not matter are plain wrong.

 

OK. First of all... sorry for the late reply - I've been through some serious personal shit - but I think this thread needs to be revived a bit just to praise the Fireface a lil' bit more.
So I bought the Fireface UC in august 2014 and used it ever since when time was available and even abused it with high voltages from my rudimentary diy cmos synths and constant interchange between my pairs of monitors - that is until I attached a monitor controller to the rig. Not one time did it fail on me! The drivers are rock solid as advertised and I didn't even bother to update them from time to time as RME constantly does. It didn't crashed the system once although I do have some plugins that are problematic that is... time-bombed In such cases no spikes, no holes in my ears... only silence and the daw still works.
In terms of quality of sound, it is indeed a serious upgrade from the EMU 0404 I used to have. It seems to me the sound is more defined, clearer and separated than before. No more muffled low frequencies for me! As for the highs - in combination with the A7X's - they tend to get pretty aggressive and ear-fatiguing if overdone. All in all... crystal clear sound here!
I'm also impressed with the DIGICheck analyzer software it came packed with. The analysis is done at the hardware level and does not draw upon system resources. It's by far the best analyzer I've used so far.
Now I don't know how professional this tool is, as I'm not in this business in any way and I don't plan to enter it anytime soon... I bet there are audio interfaces out there far more capable and sophisticated than this one, but for a hobbyist like me who makes noise/music from time to time for his own pleasure, this RME is a splendid choice.

 

I think the only other product that compete with your card in the Win Realm is the Audient iD14.

 

Just dont get MOTUs like Ultralite USB/Firewire series and under, those cards are really great but you're looking for best drivers and good system processing power translation in realtime, since MOTU drivers are actually not updated since 2014 I can tell you you get fast 100% cpu clicks and props almost as fast as a basic crappy M-Audio.

 

Just by comparing the specs, I would seriously doubt that, martel! Fireface UC has "18x In- and outputs, simultaneously usable", "24 Bit / 192 kHz AD/DA Resolution", "2x MIDI I/O". It's a completely different beast and that is also reflected in the price - which is by and large four times higher. Let's not compare apples and oranges here!

 

Don't get carried away with nice[ly advertised] hardware as software/driver is equally, if not even more important. RME software and the brilliant driver is what sells RME in my eyes. That's one of the reasons why nothing else gets me excited, because having a great, stable, efficient, fast driver and software like DigiCheck feels just so great. I bought my HDSP 9652 just for the driver and software, even though I could work with TC StudioKonnekt 48 alone. I never looked back because occasionally I would get a little problem with the TC, but never with RME!

The only other driver I would trust is Lynx pretty much. Just because I really really like to work in peace, you know. Shit happening pisses me off and makes me lose creativity.

 

RME rocks.

 

Yeap... Lynx is pro stuff. Too bad the prices are ultra-professional too. And for the money you get fewer analog inputs as compared to RME, which means additional extension boards, etc. I'd rather let the likes of Daft Punk and BOC deal with that gear... as I'm quiet happy with my entrylevel pro interface.

 

I am on second RME interface, both bought used Fantastic bang for the buck!