Steve Steve Steve
I don't know if you remember me but I used to post on the UA forum (the older one) and Nuendo's.
I myself had been an RME user all this time (5 years - Hammerfall to DSP to Fireface) and just recently Brian McCall and 'Fred Z' (Synthax's West rep), out here in LA told me I should wait on the AES32. So.....I couldn't wait, and I got the Lynx AES16. Enough people have raved about this card, and no one had said anything about the RME yet...until you.
But from my a/b's between my cards, the Lynx makes the Fireface sound like a toy. The difference isn't exactly subtle, it is more like "do you want smeared fun digital audio, or unmasked real digital audio"...? I'll let you guess which one produces which.
On the topic of digital cables sounding the same - you're out of your mind. I am definitely one to admit that I had a similar attitude way back when, but EVERYTHING matters. Do not assume anything in this world, especially with digital 1's and 0's. Until you actually sit down and take the time to audition all these scenarios -- different mic cables, different snake cables, different speaker wire, different
power conditioners, different digital cabling...you won't be able to tell yourself the truth. I
need the truth so I took the time over the span of these last couple of months.
I'm not about to give you the answers in one post, but I will point out a few things that disturb me.
* I take it you're still using Nuendo, which I have also been using for 6 years now. Moved onto Sequioa/Samplitude. Nuendo is masking the audio, so if you want to be a better engineer and take pride in what you produce, get out of "Post-Production Software" land and get real. Mastering houses are using Sequioa and SADiE
for a reason.
* About the 2192: I myself have not auditioned the UA unit, but from people that I know and respect, they've told me it colors the sound and might sound great, but it's simply not producing what we all would like in our monitoring chain - transparency.
* Your main monitoring...is off a Central Station? That thing sent a mechanical relay to one my speakers when I hit "MONO" (not DIM) and it un-dimmed my speakers while the attenuator was way past where it needed to be. These are famously impossible to find speakers I might add. Further insult to injury, I did a shootout between multiple CS units earlier this year and 4 units all sounded different, not to mention that the A, B, and C sections are totally not passively identical. I had an exec from PreSonus come by GC Hollywood so I could show him the difference, his response: "Well it still sounds good for $400!" C'mon Steve
* Apogee has definitely lost many points in my department when the truth matters, but for some reason everyone still just 'believes' them. They hyped the Big Ben with marketing (which they'll confess took NO marketing), and so now everyone has a Big Ben because it's a clever name and looks pretty....sounds more like MONSTER's campaign strategies. I did a shootout between the Big Ben, RME's built-in clock, and the latest Antelope OCX (do a search here).
jdunn: Is it 3080 or 3173 ?
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