Where does purchase of high end AD Converter rank?

[onemoretime]

Originally Posted by Dirty Halo

What's with the overt hostility on this topic?

It's not that big a deal... Get the best converter YOU can afford and that works within the context of your room, monitors, and gear.

The guy asked about the importance of converters and since its THE part of the equation that captures all your hard work, its important.

Pretty simple. Not exactly anything to get yer panties in a wad about.

-a

Context is everything. Maybe you are running a mastering rig and want to buy a good two track converter with some features suited for 2 track mastering. Nothing wrong with that. But there has to be some respect in this mother****er. Again I am all for people making money. But they exaggerate. They take themselves too seriously. They will say just about anything to make a dollar. Fact or fiction. Doens't matter. Nope you cant use the conversion that came with your 25k pro tools rig apparently that is ''inadequate'' you must buys ''better'' please pay for snake oil grape cool aid convertaz so that we can really milk you for what you got.
Buster ass converter ******!

[Gringo Starr]

Originally Posted by Dirty Halo

What's with the overt hostility on this topic?

I don't get it either. I enjoy this forum and usually have a smile on my face as I'm reading various threads. I love playing music, writing music, recording music, or talking about anything music related. I just laugh when people get angry on this forum. It doesn't make any sense to me.

And thanks for everyones input. It definitely put some things in perspective for me.

[tonnu]

well i think another point that is related to this thread is not simply "balancing" the monitors/room/converters, but also the relative merits of the converters viz-a-viz other upgrades (not only monitors/room/converters).

say you have a grand to burn, bang for buck, would your source be the most cost effective upgrade, or your outboard and software processor, then the converters?

this is given that your room and monitoring is satisfactory.

[Teknobeam]

G i g o

[Gringo Starr]

Unfortunately my reality is that I don't have a "room" to make sound good. I live in a one bedroom apartment with my wife. Our bedroom has a king size bed, a dresser, a laundry basket, and a tiny corner left for my desk with all my gear crammed in. Luckily I have a cool wife who backs me up 100%. So treating my room or getting great monitors is simply not an option. My walls are so thin I can hear my neighbors f*ck, burp, fart, sh*t, the ding on the microwave, and just about anything else you can think of. Hopefully someday that will change and then I will purchase nice monitors and set up my own room. Uuuuuuggggg!!! I dream of that day like a 13 year old boy dreams of girls.

I think the suggestion of renting a higher end AD converter for a day is a great idea. I could A/B with my Motu and hear for myself if it's worth it to drop money on a better converter.

[Reptil]

I think you don't have to get a Grim or Bricasti or Forsell to notice a difference. Some of the mid range converters out there sound really good for the money. The thing is, the R&D is priced in, and the function/price curve is exponential.
Check out the SSL, Apogee, Aurora, Mytek, RME, erm ...... (it's monday morning so I'm sure I forgot some).

what's a "G I G O"?

[Teknobeam]

Originally Posted by Reptil

I think you don't have to get a Grim or Bricasti or Forsell to notice a difference. Some of the mid range converters out there sound really good for the money. The thing is, the R&D is priced in, and the function/price curve is exponential.
Check out the SSL, Apogee, Aurora, Mytek, RME, erm ...... (it's monday morning so I'm sure I forgot some).

what's a "G I G O"?

Garbage in.....Garbage out. I tried to space out the letters and when i posted it ....it came out like an Ed Sullivan mouse.

[hmmm]

I got converters before i even got monitors. They were my first purchase after a laptop. they are pretty necessary. Definitely get the best you can get. Even consider fewer connections but better quality. You can always use a patch bay or summing mixer or something like that.

[Reptil]

lol
I still don't get it

anyway, Metric Halo, also good..

[Teknobeam]

G =(garbage) I= (in) G =(garbage) O= (out)

[RANTARAVE]

Originally Posted by Teknobeam

G =(garbage) I= (in) G =(garbage) O= (out)

e one of my computer teachers always used to say that

but in regards to the thread I feel that M-audio is the best low end converter and it does perfectly fine.. but If you want a bit better and you want professional quality RME has the best price/performance

[Reptil]

aaaah see monday morning ahahaha pfff

[MarcB]

Originally Posted by onemoretime

Context is everything. Maybe you are running a mastering rig and want to buy a good two track converter with some features suited for 2 track mastering. Nothing wrong with that. But there has to be some respect in this mother****er. Again I am all for people making money. But they exaggerate. They take themselves too seriously. They will say just about anything to make a dollar. Fact or fiction. Doens't matter. Nope you cant use the conversion that came with your 25k pro tools rig apparently that is ''inadequate'' you must buys ''better'' please pay for snake oil grape cool aid convertaz so that we can really milk you for what you got.
Buster ass converter ******!

I partly agree with you , but tend to think there's a bit more to it.

If what you're saying is correct, then why hasn't some home DIYer made a nice 8 or 16 channel ADC , got it measured, had it A/B tested against the really expensive converters, took it to a few studios as loaners and then published the results - word would soon get around and he'd make himself a 100% market share by having something with the performance of a £5k converter but for £200.

The DAC market has been over-run with budget eastern converters for years. These usually claim the earth but deliver average at best as they're usually built with varying construction levels and use fake parts. (excluding MHDT and Xindak DACs as these are great)

I'm not saying that all budget converters are shit or unusable, I'm just pointing out that the expensive ones (should) have an edge with being built to certain repeatable high levels of tolerances which you just can't get by doing it cheaply. If it could be done for a hell of a lot less then every guy capable of using a soldering iron would have ebay flooded with amazing converters instead of the usual mish mash of crap that you see today.

[massimo]

I would say investing in good converters is sort of like investing in your hope/goal to become a better listener. The differences between low, mid, and high end converters are there for sure- only, you might be unable to hear them properly right now, but you hopefully will in the future. While a great DAC only makes sense with a great room (but earphone outputs will reveal a lot as well...), using the best AD converter you can, exactly like a great micpre or microphone, will keep you from ever regretting having recorded a great performance with the wrong techniques or inferior equipment.

best regards
Massimo

[hmmm]

Originally Posted by Reptil

lol
I still don't get it

anyway, Metric Halo, also good..

+1 metric halo ftw. It really nice to have something that i don't have to worry about. it just works. i know they are amazing converters and pres. win win. Im sure many other high end converters also are of this quality that you can set and forget.

[systematika]

Originally Posted by Odey

I upgraded from an m box to the rosetta... The difference was immense... Like night day type stuff...

Wasn't the converters. It's the fact that USB does not have the power requirements for audio..... It's barely enough to charge your cell phone and comes through a ribbon cable the width of your thumb nail from a crappy power supply made by 10 year olds in China.

CONVERTERS:

You generally need balanced converters. NO PREAMPS. Just balanced, line level converters in a breakout box run by it's own power cable/supply.

That's it. You don't need to get expensive, but that's what you oughta push for. When you "upgrade" you're not hearing the improved sound of the converters, you're hearing mostly improvement in power supply and op amps. The general rule of thumb is the simpler designs yield the better sound.....

That's one of the reasons why the behringer sounds as decent as it does IMO. If it would've been a firewire box... Whole diff ball game.

[NWSooner]

Dirty Halo and I got into it a bit in the last converter thread here. We disagree on the relative importance of converters, and that's fine. The signal chain is a signal chain after all, and is only as good as the weakest link so he's right about that. I personally think that the prosumer level converters (RME, Steinberg, some of the Apogee stuff, etc.) are really quite good and as far as bang-for-the-buck goes I think you get better results from mid-range converters than you do from mid-range instruments, mid-range monitors, mid-range mics, etc. This doesn't mean I don't think they're important, they obviously are. Everything you record goes through them, and everything you hear goes through them as well. At the end of the day you want all parts of the signal chain to be excellent, and I wouldn't have shelled out for the latest Metric Halo stuff if I didn't think it made a difference. It's just my opinion that if you have to prioritize where you put your money right now moderately priced converters are really quite good and they wouldn't make the top of my list of things to upgrade if you have other parts of your studio that are lacking. (Room treatment, instruments, monitors, etc.)

[Dudley]

i guess the big advantage of being ITB ( as i am) is that input convertors stop mattering!

i have some Lavry DA-10 convertors which I love, but i wouldn't say they are essential, but a nice luxury for those wanting a great monitoring chain for their ITB studio.

[James Meeker]

For electronic music the importance of AD converters is (IMHO) directly proportional to the amount of hardware synthesizers you own, and their quality. Nothing pains me more than seeing a beautiful modular synth hit a Mackie 1622 VLZ and into a M*Audio box.

Of course that setup can sound good.

But not as good as... a Prism Orpheus, Daking IV into a Lynx, or even an Apogee Duet.

The best setups have a balanced approach. The money is spread around across the entire continuum of necessary equipment.

[seen-da-sizer]

Originally Posted by James Meeker

The best setups have a balanced approach. The money is spread around across the entire continuum of necessary equipment.

+1 It is all about eliminating the weakest link in your chain...


Getting a better AD/DA converter (or outboard gear for that matter) for myself is a long time overdue. Like so many I did focus getting more synths for far too long.