Hey! I bring another conundrum to you all.
I have about 800-900€ to get a new audio interface. Something that might weight in my decision is the fact that I am switching countries, meaning portability is important but not imperative. I am an intermediate-advanced producer and mixer/mastering engineering with a small business.
My options (open to suggestions) are:
- RME Babyface Pro (portability, expandability ADAT) - I don't know if this one handles my HD650
- Focusrite Clarett 8Pre (big rack unit but it's a future investment for recording and enlarging an eventual studio/4Pre - small version of 8Pre)
- Apollo Twin (I am not that fond of these but they are portable, and well UAD plugs)
- Audient stuff (I don't know that much but I hope you mega-experts do)
- any other that may sit in that range of price

Thank you for your help and input,
D.

 

Sound quality is great out of all of them. Just choose the inputs and outputs you need and the features.

Audient - Rave reviews and the least expensive from your options. Can't go wrong here.

Focusrite Clarett 8Pre - Meh. I don't trust Focusrite's drivers so this one would be at the bottom of my list.

Apollo Twin - This one I would only go for if you really (and I mean REALLY) want their plugins. In my opinion, it's 2017 and there are plenty of great plugins out there that sound just as good, not as expensive, and not tied to their hardware. Be warned. Once you get caught in UAD's ecosystem, you're pretty much stuck with them because you wouldn't want to spend all that money on expensive plugins and not use them in the future if you choose to use something else.

RME Babyface Pro - I own this one and absolutely love it. Drivers are rock solid, built like a tank, TotalMix FX is amazing, has loopback, and RME support is top notch. If you need more inputs in the future then it has an ADAT input. I'm not sure about your HD650s, but I own a pair of Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro 250 Ohm headphones and it drives them with no problems at all and gets plenty loud.

I'd name others, but in my experience I've used pretty much every interface out there and can only recommend going with a Steinberg interface with the ins/outs you need and then jumping straight to RME when your budget allows. Skip all the other stuff. They're the only two that have given me zero problems, were built tough, and sounded great. All the others I've tried (Focusrite, MOTU, Apogee, etc) have always had something wrong with them. Either sketchy drivers or low headphone output among other things.

 

Last edited: Mar 10, 2017

If I would had the choose I would choose with what I'm familiar with,

I've heard (And more importantly used)both the RME babyface pro and the apollo twin.
so my main focus would be on those 2 devices.

I would pick the RME over the Apollo Twin because I'm not that interested in uad plugins as I used to be.

I would however pick the fireface UC, which is usb despite the name.

 

The new Apollo Twin is quad core, double the horse power of the previous. So it may be a logical selection if you want to go the UAD plug route. Audient sounds great but i'm not sure how stable is their driver. Focusrite, unfortunately for the once great company they still write the worse drivers. The RME has a solid driver and good sound ,imho it is overpriced as the UAD is, but still it is a golden standard.
What blew me away in terms of pre-amps and analog out quality was the Tascam UH7000 and i really wasn't expecting it :
http://tascam.com/product/uh-7000/overview/
I tested it in the studio against a Motu ultralite mk4 which my second hand man has for live gigs, and it clearly blew it away. I 've yet to determine how stable are their drivers though, but its about 400$, if you can check it out i'm sure you 'll be satisfied.

 

hi there

little conundrum it is . lets start
the babyface should handle the heaphones according to the head honcho.

the rest....... depends
how serious the small biz aspect is. is it expected to grow. are you dealing
with clients in person. how big is the mixing aspect compared to the mastering and so on.

with this mind, and the income now vs expected income later, this i would consider.
Mastering + paying Clients (with good room and monitoring already in place)
the smaller offerings of Prism & Merging might be a good investment but
Antelope (zen tour) could bring you some very good sonics, very good io.
+ expandability for smaler budget. but i´m a bit ambivalent towards the company.

Mixing
the madiface could be intresting expansionwise. but like above with clients and so on.
the small Merging because they suport Ravenna networking. wich i think is a better networking standard + their mic pres are very good. secondly expansion in this networked system is a breeze.

if you start to build up a base of operations without a proper room and monitoring in place
i´d start with audient 22. three good things about it are
good monitoring
adat expansion
good mic pres + Di
you can invest the rest in building the studio and networking in the new country.

Good luck and all the best Mate

 

Last edited: Mar 11, 2017

RME

 

@dondada Antelope is the probably the best of all, but his budget is quite lower

 

How do you connect the speakers and for example an external compressor? This is what is bothering me about the Babyface pro. I have those two outputs and that's it... :/

 

I'll throw you the same question, how do you connect the speakers and an external compressor at the same time?

 

Yep, 800ish, but I've had wet dreams with that.

 

I've had some smaller devices, but I'm going for stability and pre amp and phone amp this time!

 

i wouldnt go quite that far. but bang for buck certanly

with all the questions you raised the audient seems the best solution
http://www.bettermusic.com.au/media...e5fb8d27136e95/i/d/id22-rearextraheight_0.jpg

you see the send/return io, thats for your external gear like compressors

 

I've got an Audient ID14 which is fantastic - 2 very high quality Mic Pre's and an ADAT in. Portable on its own but can be expanded to add another 8 Mic pres for the studio. An unusual but useful benefit is the ability to use the big volume knob to control plugins (just hover cursor over the parameter you want to control). Definitely worth adding to your shortlist although the ID22 might suit your purposes better.

 

With the Babyface I use mostly external preamps going in, so my hardware compressor follows them in the chain, but if you are relying on just the internal preamps it would be a routing tangle...into a BP mic pre, out of a main output and then back into a line input. A real PITA. If you have and wish/need to use your compressor in your flow, maybe the Audient with it's send/return would suit you better.

 

I switched 1 week ago from a my "old" Babyface as the center of my studio to a babyface pro. I was so happy with the portability and the overall performance even of the old babyface and adat that i decided to keep it this way. It is a really nice pice of gear. In the studio i use a Mackie Onyx Blackbird with an adat s/mux connection to add inputs/outputs (outboard gear).

The babyface pro is definatly really highend in a portable package. Preamps are super clean. The Headphone amp powers without any problems my AKG 812 and a pair of beyerdynamic dt 990 (250 Ohm).
The best thing is latency and total mix. Hell i get 1.4 ms latency at 48 samples. My old Babyface had around 1.8ms 48 samples.
I only have it for a week but it seems as stable as my old babyface.

If portability is is important for you go with it. It is worth the money.

My 2 cents to the others.
Audient - really good value for the money. The preamps are really really nice. Probably the best bang for the buck.

Focusrite - i am not a big fan. But the clarret series is nice gear for sure.

Apollo - only if you really want the UAD plugs. I tested the twin. Was not impresed at all. If i want UAD i go with a dedicated card.



Edit: did not check it but you can use on the old babyface the second headphone out as an unballanced out. I guesss that works with the the pro too. You could use that to connect a patchbay or outboard gear ...

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 10, 2017

I would spend only slightly more (without VAT it's probably around the 900) and get the RME Fireface UCX. We use it at the company I work for and it's great. I have the madiface FX myself, which is great too.
What is great about the is the usual RME stability together with the FX. Although the effects are not for recording (quality wise), you can make a monitor section for your singer, for example, with realtime compression and reverb and send it back to him/her without it ever entering the DAW. This way you basically work the same way as on a PT HD setup with realtime effects on the monitor section and zero latency.
Then you can record that same signal dry in your DAW.

 

Can the adat perform the compressor processing tasks?

This could be a good option with an adat!

 

1190€ i guess I'll have to check the UC or BFPro.

 

So it's starting to be BFP+ADat or UC or Audient 14/22!

 

How's the latency?