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awediohead · 6th July 2009

Thanks lovekrafty and microwave - excellent advice in response to my question.

As it turns out I'll be keeping both because the R16 is going back. As has been my suspicion for a while actually having it to physically eyeball (I said before I'm not very familiar with desks compared to audio interfaces) and go through the features I confirmed my opinion that this is a "Mark 1" version of what I'm sure will be an excellent product in future: either as R16 mk II or the R 24 that's been discussed so much in this thread.

I ordered it on the basis of a misunderstanding - I believed it would be possible to have 16 + 2 + 4 ADAT channels all at 96k with a firmware update/option in Firewire mode. The option of using firmware to increase the ADAT sample rate (SMUX) is only possible in ADAT mode because of a limitation of FW 400.

I could have lived with this, but what killed it for me was having stereo channels, 2 with EQ, that cannot be routed to and from the DAW except of course one at a time through the L R. This just strikes me as plain *wrong* in a recording desk - meaning you'd have to eat into the 16 mono channels. I appreciate that this is stated in the manual, but somehow I managed to miss it despite a huge amount of reading beforehand: this represented a big investment for me, both in research time and cash.

Another minor gripe is that there are features available in the driver software for Windows that are not available in OS X. I thought we'd got beyond this kind of inequality, but it seems to be a thing with A&H as they do not supply Mac software for editing the effects in their MixWizard series either.

All that said, I was very impressed by the quality of the desk's build and I loved its sound. They have the analogue side of things totally wrapped up at A&H - it's the interfacing with the digital realm that lets it down (lack of word clock being the prime example) and I suspect they'll get these things ironed out by version 2 or the R24.

I'll be watching with interest!!

cheers - and again a big thank you to Mike for clear, quick and honest support. On that score A&H have been excellent.

6th July 2009	#760
awediohead Gear Head Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: UK Posts: 72	Thanks lovekrafty and microwave - excellent advice in response to my question. As it turns out I'll be keeping both because the R16 is going back. As has been my suspicion for a while actually having it to physically eyeball (I said before I'm not very familiar with desks compared to audio interfaces) and go through the features I confirmed my opinion that this is a "Mark 1" version of what I'm sure will be an excellent product in future: either as R16 mk II or the R 24 that's been discussed so much in this thread. I ordered it on the basis of a misunderstanding - I believed it would be possible to have 16 + 2 + 4 ADAT channels all at 96k with a firmware update/option in Firewire mode. The option of using firmware to increase the ADAT sample rate (SMUX) is only possible in ADAT mode because of a limitation of FW 400. I could have lived with this, but what killed it for me was having stereo channels, 2 with EQ, that cannot be routed to and from the DAW except of course one at a time through the L R. This just strikes me as plain wrong in a recording desk - meaning you'd have to eat into the 16 mono channels. I appreciate that this is stated in the manual, but somehow I managed to miss it despite a huge amount of reading beforehand: this represented a big investment for me, both in research time and cash. Another minor gripe is that there are features available in the driver software for Windows that are not available in OS X. I thought we'd got beyond this kind of inequality, but it seems to be a thing with A&H as they do not supply Mac software for editing the effects in their MixWizard series either. All that said, I was very impressed by the quality of the desk's build and I loved its sound. They have the analogue side of things totally wrapped up at A&H - it's the interfacing with the digital realm that lets it down (lack of word clock being the prime example) and I suspect they'll get these things ironed out by version 2 or the R24. I'll be watching with interest!! cheers - and again a big thank you to Mike for clear, quick and honest support. On that score A&H have been excellent. __________________ Mac Pro, Logic Studio, FF800, Liquid 4 Pre, Adam A7's.