Apogee Ensemble or FF800 w/DAC-1?

[pabelius]

Greetings all you fine folks on this board.

I currently have a FF800 and while I'm fairly satistifed with the sound (not that I've A/B'd it with other interfaces lately), I'm DYING for a volume knob. I love the sound of the DAC-1, and I know it improves the sound of the Fireface a little bit (friend let me borrow one a while back). But I've been thinking of perhaps switching to an Apogee Ensemble and wondering if people can chime in on the subject of which might be a better route sonically.

Most of what I do is in the box, but I do record stuff from time to time and have a Mini-Me as my main mic pres, which I SPDIF into the Fireface. This seems to work fine, but perhaps I could get it all in one spanky unit (that might even sound better). I read the big long Rosetta VS Fireface thread and it seemed like overall people preferred the RME, which (no offense to RME) shocked me (solely on price tag- which is to the credit of RME).

So I thought I had it worked out- sell the Mini-Me and Fireface, buy an Ensemble and have a pretty interface with a nice big volume knob (of course now I'm seeing complaints about the volume level being jumpy with the knob...to muddy the issue).

So now I'm thinking...AD16X and DAC-1? But then I need mic pres...oye, it gets so confusing so quickly.

Would love some opinions!

Thanks,
Rob

[pabelius]

Anyone?

[the yeti]

i have a ff800, was in the same volume knob quandry, and hooked up a lucid da9624 that i had gotten in a trade and was gonna put on ebay. wow. either the FF ad's are much better than the da's will let you hear, or the lucid is very under-rated and flattering/ or both. i found it much easier to ,mix the low end and found myself with less ear fatigue after long nights or tweaking. while apogee makes a seriously good product, i don't think thier lowest end box is any better than what you have.
either way, keep the FF800 and get a da.

[mortlar]

I think it was me (amongst others) that you heard complain about the volume knob. As you might have read in some of the other posts, I sold my fireface 800 to buy an apogee ensemble. Max (i think) from apogee meant that this was not an issue any more (or that it must have been a faulty unit) still haven't gotten the ensemble, but when I do i will post something on this forum so you'll know what my experience are. My main reasons for switching to the ensemble was the mic pre's (and the fact that they were on the back), The volume knob, and the design. (and some other small details.)

As far as I can see, you're not using the pre's on the fireface, so that won't be an issue. You can easily get a volume knob or a dac. I'm not sure i want to recommend switching to the ensemble, but i'll probably know within a week or two. Go with your gut. Hope you get some more decisive answers as well.

Morten

[Slaytex]

I use an SPL Volume 2 with my FF800 (Very happy with the SPl unit). If I had the money the DAC-1 would be cool though.

[pabelius]

Thanks for the responses, fellas.

On the volume knob tip I found this: Mpatchs 2 Passive Controller. I also looked at the SPL and it's a sexier knob (something I hope to hear my girlfriend say ), but I do like the 2 output option of the Mpatch. Either one looks like it would work great.

The big point of concern was the converters in the Ensemble over Fireface. I've been under the assumption that the Ensemble is gonna sound better because it's $500 more than the FF, and because it's Apogee (and for some reason that means better? ...an old Jedi mind trick!). But after I checked out the audio samples of this thread- Rosetta vs Fireface , I found I preferred the Fireface over the Rosetta...by a lot. I thought it was a pretty remarkable difference for my ears. I thought the Apogee sounded tinny and cheap, whereas the Fireface sounded warm, more alive and had more sparkle. So ironically after all my excitement and notions of "upgrading" to Apogee I ended up thinking it would be downgrading. But as all units from the same manufacturer are not created equal, maybe the Ensemble sounds better than the Rosetta? I'd be very curious to hear the same test with an Ensemble vs Fireface.

If the Ensemble's converters are worse or equal to the Rosetta, then it's Fireface with a volume knob all the way for me. And that's like...$1k cheaper.

On another note of saving money- I now remember how the shootout between the DAC-1 and the Fireface's outputs went when my engineer buddy came by and brought it to my studio. We both agreed it improved things slightly, but didn't justify buying the $1k box. The FF's D/A held up surprisingly well. Of course, looking ahead I'm thinking about upgrading my JBL LSR6328P's to Genelec 1032A's, and I very well might hear a bigger difference with the DAC-1 then.

Ah the soul searing conflicts of studio upgrades. It's a good problem.

[mortlar]

From what people here have claimed the test you are referring to might be faulty. I won't claim to know the answer to that, but i would recommend that you don't base your decision on that thread alone. Will you be able to a/b both devices? But if the fireface does the trick, then you won't have the need to do improvents? It's just a tool after all.

[bobx]

hey, just thought i'd add a little from my experience. i currently run the ff800 and i had the DAC-1 for a short while. i found the improvement over the ff800 DA to be rather marginal and not worth the $800+ i spent on the unit (i monitor w/ the Adam A7's in a pretty well treated room).

as of now, i have upgraded my ADC to a mytek stereo96 ADC running as the master clock through spdif. so far, i'm beginning to see a remarkable improvement though i've only tracked one project through it so far.

[ProducerBoy]

I listened to that FF800 vs Rosetta thread as well. I recently picked up an Ensemble and I love it. A producer friend of mine is borrowing it to run with his Digi 003 to track vocals on a project we've been collaborating on, and he is loving it the clarity and detail. It's smoking the digi stuff.
Never used an RME, but I'm sure they rock.
(BTW...it's worth mentioning that I spend 99% of my time in Logic, so....)

[Schmacko]

One thing that's often overlooked with the Ensemble and it's built-in monitor attenuation is that it works as a 5.1 or 7.1 surround controller on top of the usual stereo monitoring setup. And, 5.1 and 7.1 monitoring can be configured through Maestro, so it's not just tied to surround mixing in Logic Pro.

Finally, I owned a FF800 before taking delivery of my Ensemble, and IMO I feel the Apogee's conversion to be more accurate. Whether they use a better converter or better analog components, to me it sounded clearer in the high and low-end extreme freq's. I also feel that the stereo image improved in both separation and perceived wideness.