MOTU 828 vs. RME Fireface 800 for OS X?

[edIT]

sorry less latency & more overall performance

[shineboxNJ]

AFAIK- The Fireface 800 OSX drivers are still in beta, so its a little tough to say right now. RME has a much better reputation in terms of quality in sound and build, Motu it seems you either love or hate.
On OSX thought Motu generally works fine, PC I am not sure I would recommend.

Mo

[cmackg]

The Fireface OSX drivers are post-beta now. I have one, I love it. Can't compare versus a MOTU, but the rep of RME won me out. Latency etc., on my setup, is more a function of CPU than anything else. I'm running a 550 powerbook, and it gets to hurting.

Another factor in performance is how you plug it in vis a vis drives. I'm running a LaCie Firewire 800 card for the fireface, and a OWC firewire drive off of the stock interface. Things work much better, and lower CPU in this setting than when I ran the fireface throught the drive on a shared bus.

[jdunn]

RME just released the OS X driver the other day. Supposedly it has many improvements. FWIW, I'm ditching my MOTU 896 in favor of a Fireface 800 or Apogee AD-16X w/ Firewire X card (lot's more money). People are saying the RME converters are pretty damn good on this one.

I have heard that the mic pres do not have enough gain, but a true slut should have outboard pres anyway. I was quoted a price of $1,200 on the Fireface yesterday, which isn't bad. I may end up going with the Apogee, but my recommendation for someone considering the RME vs MOTU is to go with RME. The MOTU Core Audio driver is not the greatest, IMO, and the hardware is pretty crappy.

I'm not sure if there's any point to using FW 800 unless you're using a FW 800 drive. Having the interface on an 800 bus and the drive on a 400 doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Did RME recommend this?

[edIT]

Okay so question again...... Sound quality aside, lets say I'm running a DIGI 002 rack right now, but I'm switching over to Cubase SX so I'll be running the 002 via core audio. Is it gonna be worth it to plunk down $700 for an 828 MK II or $1200 for a Fireface? Performance wise (latency, playback buffers not overloading etc....) is it worth it to throw down $700 to $1200 for those cards? I've got to know! Don't want ot get these cards and be like WTF?!?!? Theres no difference!!!

[cmackg]

As for the bus issue -- no they didn't suggest it. My powerbook has but one FW port, so I got the 800 cardbus to leave future options open.

Getting an honest shootout between the two could take a while -- need a slut to blow up front money on each.... the magazines won't give an honest shoot-out. Do you have the 002 already? I'm confused by your post, really.

[edIT]

yeah i've got a DIGI 002, when used with anything but Pro Tools, the performance is a little lacking. I've normally gotta set it to a 1024 k playback buffer to get anything accomplished and I've got a 1.6 single G5.

[kenn.michael]

Digi's interfaces are terrible for working with native hosts. On a G5, you should be able to work reliably at 64-128 sample buffer size. On Logic 7, I record vocals through my MOTU and Mobile I/O interfaces at 32 samples.

There will be a HUGE difference between Digi interfaces using CoreAudio and just about every other decent audio interface that uses CoreAudio as their MAIN driver in OSX.

[MattiMattMatt]

FWIW, I'm fixing to buy me one of them new FireFace 800s for OSX w/ Logic 7.

(G5, L7 on order).

[kenn.michael]

when you get everything, I'd love to know how the Fireface is!