THE Prism Orpheus THREAD!!!!!

[5flagsaudio]

I would be most interested in using the Orpheus as a stand alone converter mostly being fed by Millennia pres but, as more channels are needed, sometimes the built in pres. I know the marketing material says it is possible to use them as stand alone boxes, but how well does it work in practice? Any users that could comment on that?

[ThomasWho]

I`d like to chime in and say that this update has indeed fixed all the pops and clicks that Orpheus would give out from time to time (entering standby-mode etc).

I`m very happy about that!

Thomas

Originally Posted by Andy Saul

New software & firmware is now available for download:
Orpheus Downloads Page

We've sorted out the issue that could lead to loud pops when putting Orpheus into standby. There are also a number of smaller fixes for issues such as the SRC setting being forgotten and the Solo button state display error.

There are a couple of enhancements, too. We've introduced an 'ADAT Direct' mode that lets you convert ADAT inputs to Analogue & vice versa. Plus the rotary controls have been overhauled to act more like the one on the front panel.

Great idea for a thread, by the way, I'll check back here from time to time to see if there are any new suggestions.

[author]

How low latency/buffer size can you get without *any* trace of clicks and pops (software monitoring, Logic, 8 core Mac Pro)?

And how many simultaneous tracks? On par with a Symphony system, or is there a price for the sound quality?

[trancekid]

Originally Posted by author

How low latency/buffer size can you get without *any* trace of clicks and pops (software monitoring, Logic, 8 core Mac Pro)?

that's what i'd also like to know.

so far i'm using the motu pci-e system with a buffer of 32 or 64 in logic 8 on a 8-core mac. I mainly use software instruments more than audio tracks so i have to keep a low buffer to be able to play the synths throughout the whole production stage.

i'd really like to upgrade from the motus but i can't decide if i'd go firewire with 2 orpheus, which would be my first choice, or if i stay with pci-e because of lower buffer settings and get a symphony or lynx system.

[author]

Originally Posted by ThomasWho

I`m getting the "Core Audio Engine could not process all the data in time" error message in Logic 7.2 , with 7-8 tracks playing. I am unable to record a track all the way through a 3 minute song.

Hm, just saw this. If as few as 7-8 tracks cause problems, it's a little hard hard for me to see any practical purpose of this thing. Which is a pity, really , given the sound.

Too bad, it doesn't come as PCIe.

[ThomasWho]

Hi ,

I was refering to some specific issues that the software update was meant to fix. It did indeed fix these issues .

The low performance I`m getting is a bigger and more complex problem . I have 3 UAD cards ( after I installed card 2 and 3 I started getting lower performance , this was before I got the Orpheus) . Core Audio has never been ultra stable , especially not with Firewire. I had way fewer problems back when I was using a G4 and OS9.

The soundquality I`m getting with the Orpheus is so great that I`ll gladly switch software and computers. In the meantime I`m working on finding out what the problem is and if I can fix it. It`s still only a few months old , I`m shure we`ll figure it out soon.

PS. do a search on the Apogee Ensemble and see the crazy problems they`ve been having. It`s not Apogees fault in that case , and it`s not Prisms fault in my case. it`s OS X and core audio firewire.

Thomas

[Blenn]

Originally Posted by ThomasWho

I`d like to chime in and say that this update has indeed fixed all the pops and clicks that Orpheus would give out from time to time (entering standby-mode etc).

I`m very happy about that!

Thomas

Not fixed on mine. The pops are significantly quieter but they're still there with the firmware and software app update on Mac OS X.

The great thing about Prism, besides the staggering quality, is their support. They're aware of this and are on the case.

As for those of you who are scared to purchase - don't be. This piece of equipment is an unbelievable investment. Only one caveat - get to know the software app first before using it properly, in particular the use of it as a monitor controller as it's here the potential cause for problems exist. The device is 95% there believe me. Once they figure out the software glitches and implement some well needed features, which they will as it's only software and not hardware at fault here, then this baby will be sick!

Get it before the price goes up!

As for low latency recording - on a Mac Pro 8 core here with Nuendo 4 and can easy achieve 128 samples and really no problems to speak of at 64 samples either at 32 tracks and counting. I did have major headaches with it but that was on Logic8.

Fixed when I changed back to Nuendo!

Paul

[author]

Originally Posted by 529 Pro Audio

This is not a Prism related problem...mine has been rock solid in use with a Mac Pro.

Okay, that's great to hear. Listen, I'm not here to bash a product I don't even know. If it's good and stable, I want it.

Could you please tell me how many simultaneous tracks you can work with (without clicks and pops), and at what buffer size?

Is it realistic to use soft synths, or is the latency to high?

[author]

Originally Posted by Blenn

I did have major headaches with it but that was on Logic8.

Fixed when I changed back to Nuendo!

Hm, well I use Logic 8, and I would hate going back to Cubase.

[Blenn]

Originally Posted by author

Okay, that's great to hear. Listen, I'm not here to bash a product I don't even know. If it's good and stable, I want it.

Could you please tell me how many simultaneous tracks you can work with (without clicks and pops), and at what buffer size?

Is it realistic to use soft synths, or is the latency to high?

I hardly use soft synths at all so cannot speak of that I'm afraid but at 96khz I run at 128 samples giving me about 4- 5 ms of latency. I am in the middle of a project as we speak running over 32 tracks of 24bit 96khz and on a Mac Pro 8 core my CPU is about 1-2% with not clicks / pops in audible sight. I get not real problems at 64 samples either really other than some erratic CPU spikes but again not pops or clicks.

But I must stress that this has only been the case since I ditched logic 8. I could not get a thing done on logic below 256 samples. (I do believe an update has cured this by the way).

The Orpheus is not at fault here by the way. It's definitely a Core Audio and Mac thing. My friend's monster PC with dedicated firewire pcie card had him using the Orpheus at 32 samples (1-2ms) with ease, or so he told me when he borrowed it. So all things I have heard it's supposedly better performance under PC with XP than core audio on Mac.

I keep meaning to install XP on boot camp and try it out - I just guess that since I'm getting work done I'm in no mood to mess about.

Paul

[Blenn]

Originally Posted by author

Hm, well I use Logic 8, and I would hate going back to Cubase.

Well if the update has cured those problems then you're fine otherwise you'll be left with a choice. Stick with an app you are happy with and get Apogee AD/DA 16X if you want to get close to Prism quality or if you simply must have Prism quality, which is staggering, then maybe re-look at Cubase.

Best of luck to you Author.

Paul.

p.s. Please do try it out with the latest Logic as I believe this has fixed a lot of issues and you simply have got to hear the Prism is believe the hype!

[author]

Originally Posted by Blenn

I hardly use soft synths at all so cannot speak of that I'm afraid but at 96khz I run at 128 samples giving me about 4- 5 ms of latency. I am in the middle of a project as we speak running over 32 tracks of 24bit 96khz and on a Mac Pro 8 core my CPU is about 1-2% with not clicks / pops in audible sight. I get not real problems at 64 samples either really other than some erratic CPU spikes but again not pops or clicks.

But I must stress that this has only been the case since I ditched logic 8. I could not get a thing done on logic below 256 samples. (I do believe an update has cured this by the way).

The Orpheus is not at fault here by the way. It's definitely a Core Audio and Mac thing. My friend's monster PC with dedicated firewire pcie card had him using the Orpheus at 32 samples (1-2ms) with ease, or so he told me when he borrowed it. So all things I have heard it's supposedly better performance under PC with XP than core audio on Mac.

I keep meaning to install XP on boot camp and try it out - I just guess that since I'm getting work done I'm in no mood to mess about.

Paul

Thank you for your answer, there's a lot of good info!

Uh, I really dislike latency. And 5 ms is a lot more than what Symphony offers. On the other hand, your enthusiasm about this thing are convincing, and I can see from your gear list that you focus on good sound.

I also saw that you've got the 1073DPD -- may I ask how you would compare its converter to Orpheus? Is there any point in having the DPD, if I buy the Prism? Do you ever use its AD now?

Oh, and one more thing if you have the time: Is there anything to gain, sound quality-wise, these days from upgrading Cubase to Nuendo? Can it run at lower buffer size than Cubase? (You mention 32 samples, and I thought that Cubase was limited to 64...)

[h4nc0]

Originally Posted by author

Thank you for your answer, there's a lot of good info!

Uh, I really dislike latency. And 5 ms is a lot more than what Symphony offers. On the other hand, your enthusiasm about this thing are convincing, and I can see from your gear list that you focus on good sound.

I also saw that you've got the 1073DPD -- may I ask how you would compare its converter to Orpheus? Is there any point in having the DPD, if I buy the Prism? Do you ever use its AD now?

Oh, and one more thing if you have the time: Is there anything to gain, sound quality-wise, these days from upgrading Cubase to Nuendo? Can it run at lower buffer size than Cubase? (You mention 32 samples, and I thought that Cubase was limited to 64...)

DPD is good because it will give you an extra pair of great ADs. I ended up getting DPA because I didn't really need an extra pair of ADs. Buffersize is determined by your audio interface's setting, not the host application. Cubase is the same as Nuendo sonically. And both will do low-latency fine, however, since Cubase/Nuendo uses more resources than Logic because of the way plugins are utilized(not so sure if this has changed), this plays a role in determining usable latency. You will generally get lower latency in Logic than Cubase/Nuendo. And you will get lower latency using PCI/PCI-e interface than Firewire.

[soundseeker]

Can someone say their experience with the orpheus and sample rates in logic. Has anyone used 96K? does it sound better for accoustic music than 48 or whatever?

[Blenn]

Originally Posted by soundseeker

Can someone say their experience with the orpheus and sample rates in logic. Has anyone used 96K? does it sound better for accoustic music than 48 or whatever?

I do mostly, 99% of the time, acoustic based instrument recordings. I do hear a difference at 96k over 44khz. I find it's more accurate sounding.

However the conversion on the Orpheus is such that at 44khz you will still smile excessively and be completely satisfied.

I had a nightmare with Logic. Could not get any stable recordings done with it at all below 256 samples. At 128 I had CPU chaos with pops and crackles and at 64 samples - forget it everything sounded weird and it popped and crackled constantly.

Switched back to Nuendo 4 and all was well again.

As always YMMV.

Paul

[Blenn]

Originally Posted by author

Thank you for your answer, there's a lot of good info!

Uh, I really dislike latency. And 5 ms is a lot more than what Symphony offers. On the other hand, your enthusiasm about this thing are convincing, and I can see from your gear list that you focus on good sound.

I also saw that you've got the 1073DPD -- may I ask how you would compare its converter to Orpheus? Is there any point in having the DPD, if I buy the Prism? Do you ever use its AD now?

Oh, and one more thing if you have the time: Is there anything to gain, sound quality-wise, these days from upgrading Cubase to Nuendo? Can it run at lower buffer size than Cubase? (You mention 32 samples, and I thought that Cubase was limited to 64...)

PCI-e will always give you far better performance than the firewire. To me 5ms is so un-noticeable, but I'm recording acoustic instruments. I read somewhere that the time the sound travels from hitting a snare drum to travel to your ear is about 3-4 m/s. Pretty instantaneous that.

Anyhow you can use the low latency mixer within the Orpheus applet to monitor directly thus hearing no latency.

As for the 32 samples I too can only get 64 samples but I'm on Nuendo 4.0 and my friend uses Nuendo 3 on PC. Need to call him and ask if he did get 32 samples.

As for sound difference of Nuendo and Cubase. It''s identical to each other. In fact I hear no difference in any daw at all - but that's just what I think.

The DPD conversion is excellent and I still do use it but only because it frees up the other 8 AD's on my Orpheus for other pre's but the Orpheus really is a class above any AD/DA I have ever used and that includes the Apogee AD/DA 16X ranges as well.

Paul

[author]

Originally Posted by Blenn

PCI-e will always give you far better performance than the firewire. To me 5ms is so un-noticeable, but I'm recording acoustic instruments. I

Thank you once again! Yeah, I guess that acceptable latency is a highly subjective matter.

But I'm not completely comfortable with the fact that Prism on their web site doesn't seem to regard latency as a problem at all; they explicitely recommend long latency for good performance and illustrate this by showing a *25* ms latency setting here:
Orpheus Operation Manual

Originally Posted by Blenn

but the Orpheus really is a class above any AD/DA I have ever used and that includes the Apogee AD/DA 16X ranges as well.

Paul

You sure know which words to pick I'm quite tempted at the moment. Problem is that I need to use soft synths. On the other hand, I could substitute some of them with hardware. Well, well, well...

[author]

Originally Posted by h4nc0

you will get lower latency using PCI/PCI-e interface than Firewire.

Yeah, but which PCIe...? There seems to be trouble with the new Lynx; the new RME apparantly hasn't enough AES to use with a 1073DPD, and Symphony forces you to use their converters...

[Blenn]

As to which PCI-e - that is a tough call. I guess a lot of people where hoping for the Lynx card to be their saviour.

As for their recommendations with longer buffer settings and high latencies, that stands to reason as with any interface using firewire 400 the bigger the settings there then the lower the system overhead will be.

The nearest you'll get to the pro-tools ideal, without using pro tools, is the apogee symphony system or Lynx on PC. I had a lynx 2 pci card on my old pc setup that gave me 1.5ms latencies. Incredible and rock solid.

I guess you really need to demo a unit. I genuinely have zero problems at 128 samples giving me 4-5m/s of latency and with their low latency mixer and Nuendo's full delay compensation I have absolutely no problems at all even where midi is concerned. I just don't use it often enough with internal soft synths to know.

Paul

P.S - However I do wish prism had contemplated a way to hook up to a PCI-e card for this unit as that would be the perfect device as you simply cannot get firewire 400 to compete with PCI-e. (why did they go the 400 and not the 800 route?)

[author]

Originally Posted by Blenn

I genuinely have zero problems at 128 samples giving me 4-5m/s of latency and with their low latency mixer and Nuendo's full delay compensation I have absolutely no problems at all even where midi is concerned. I just don't use it often enough with internal soft synths to know.

Paul

P.S - However I do wish prism had contemplated a way to hook up to a PCI-e card for this unit as that would be the perfect device as you simply cannot get firewire 400 to compete with PCI-e. (why did they go the 400 and not the 800 route?)

Good heavens, I hadn't noticed it was FW*400*... Why, oh why?

As for the 4-5 ms; I suppose it could work. Maybe especially in a Steinberg product, as it's tricky to use the Latency Fixer with Logic on a firewire thing. Again, why, why, why this firewire... :( It also messes up the use of other firewire stuff, keyboards, disks...

[Blenn]

I do agree. Firewire 400 does not seem to be a clever choice. Furthermore their AES / EBU can only handle 4 I/O at 96khz. This appears to stump any chance of hooking it up with say the Lynx PCI-e card in the future to have the full 8 I/O at 96khz.

Those things aside - the sound quality oh that sound quality!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paul

[author]

Originally Posted by Blenn

Those things aside - the sound quality oh that sound quality!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Paul

Enjoy! )

[h4nc0]

Just got my Orpheus. Compared to Benchmark DAC-1, I didn't expect to hear much improvement, but there is quite a bit of difference, fuller low and more open sounding generally.

Okay. I've played with it for a few hours now, and here is my small wish. The Control Panel software would be nice to have an option to show in tray. It's nice that the program doesn't run fulltime, but an option for it to stay in tray would be nice. No biggie tho. There are pops when turning it on/off, etc, but not too bad and they are just small poping sound. Nothing bad enough to harm the speakers. I changed ADAT setting in Unit settings, and the control panel crashed and I had to reboot to get it working again. It's not completely stable it seems. However, the sound quality.... wow. I am floored. thumbsup

[Andy Saul]

Originally Posted by author

Thank you once again! Yeah, I guess that acceptable latency is a highly subjective matter.

But I'm not completely comfortable with the fact that Prism on their web site doesn't seem to regard latency as a problem at all; they explicitely recommend long latency for good performance and illustrate this by showing a *25* ms latency setting here:
Orpheus Operation Manual

Prism Sound do not recommend an long latency for all circumstances. See the Stability and Latency chapter for more details. Latency values shown in a screenshot are no more a recommendation than any other values shown in any other screenshot, they are just examples.

The latency controls shown only apply to Windows applications. If you are using a Mac, Core Audio handles buffering, so you cannot optimize the latency yourself. The only part that you can influence is the IO buffer size within your DAW.

With Windows ASIO and WDM drivers, you can set the latency to suit your system. If you have a slow processor, or if it is busy with other tasks, you will need to set the latency high to avoid dropouts. However, if you have a fast PC that is optimized for audio, you ought to be able to get the input latency down to *5*ms

[author]

Originally Posted by Andy Saul

Prism Sound do not recommend an long latency for all circumstances.

Two quotes from your manual:

"situations where latency is critical are relatively few, so it is normally OK to operate generous buffers"

and:

"It is generally recommended that these buffer delays are set long, in order to provide best stability."

Originally Posted by Andy Saul

However, if you have a fast PC that is optimized for audio, you ought to be able to get the input latency down to *5*ms

*Down* to 5 ms...

[Andy Saul]

It is hard to get latency lower than 5ms because we have to deal with the FireWire bus, which involves software buffering at the host end. This is true of all FireWire interfaces on the market. And 5ms latency is equivalent to hearing a sound source just 1.7 meters away.

The recommendations for longer latencies are for situations where playback is not required at the same time as recording, such as when recording a live event or playing back a recorded track. Again, reasons are given in the Stability and Latency chapter of the manual, which I urge you to read.

[h4nc0]

After sleeping/hibernating, audio apps don't recognize Orpheus. Windows Device Manager does sohw Orpheus WDM Audio, however, apps don't. Running the Control panel app doesn't work. Nothing shows.

WinXP SP3. Q6600, ASUS P5W-DH, 2GB RAM.

Fireface800 worked perfectly. Rebooting fixes this.

[author]

Originally Posted by h4nc0

After sleeping/hibernating, audio apps don't recognize Orpheus. Windows Device Manager does sohw Orpheus WDM Audio, however, apps don't. Running the Control panel app doesn't work. Nothing shows.

WinXP SP3. Q6600, ASUS P5W-DH, 2GB RAM.

Fireface800 worked perfectly. Rebooting fixes this.

You should probably disable all kinds of sleeping/hibernating; lots of audio stuff have problems with that.

[Andy Saul]

Originally Posted by ThomasWho

Hi guys ,

I`m getting the "Core Audio Engine could not process all the data in time" error message in Logic 7.2 , with 7-8 tracks playing. I am unable to record a track all the way through a 3 minute song.

I`m on a Mac Pro , OS X 10.4.11 , I have 3 UAD-1 cards installed (could this be the culprit?) and no other devices on the firewire bus. I``m recording at 48khz /24 bit.

Is this a Mac Pro 8 core? There may be a compatibility issue:
Universal Audio | Support | UAD | FAQ

[ThomasWho]

Originally Posted by Andy Saul

Is this a Mac Pro 8 core? There may be a compatibility issue:
Universal Audio | Support | UAD | FAQ

Hi Andy , no it`s a dual core. One of the first generations of Mac Pro. I`m gonna put in more RAM in the next few days and see if that helps. If not I`ll try contacting the UAD forums.

Thomas