Comparing RME products against Lynx Studio products.

[limey222]

I need some good opinions on where you feel RME products such as the HSP 9652card coupled with their ADI-8 external converter box compare sonically with the Lynx AES-16 and Aurora 8 setup.

There's a difference in price, how about sound?

[chandlersonic]

I had the RME setup a while ago then switched to Apogee then to Lynx, so I can't do a direct comparison. The auroras are really nice and somebody would have to put a gun against my head to make me go back to RME.
But, I don't want to on RME too much as they helped me make great recordings, they're really good for the price. I would stay away from the converters with integrated pres by RME ( can't remember their name), I worked with them for a couple of days at a friends place and though the conversion was ok, the pres suuuucked.

( By the way, weren't you the one selling your auroras?? )

[thermos]

The auroras are way better, for sure. More clarity and separation.

[limey222]

Originally Posted by chandlersonic

I had the RME setup a while ago then switched to Apogee then to Lynx, so I can't do a direct comparison. The auroras are really nice and somebody would have to put a gun against my head to make me go back to RME.
But, I don't want to on RME too much as they helped me make great recordings, they're really good for the price. I would stay away from the converters with integrated pres by RME ( can't remember their name), I worked with them for a couple of days at a friends place and though the conversion was ok, the pres suuuucked.

( By the way, weren't you the one selling your auroras?? )

Yes, that's me, I chickened out at the last minute, but now I considering selling all over again.

I really can't afford to get to where I want to be with Lynx equipment, it will just cost me too much. We are not a big commercial studio, we take in some outside work but a lot of the material that we record is for our own releases. I want to be able to stream 24 analog tracks out of my DAW into my analog console. I CAN afford to do it with RME products if I can live with the sound and imaging. Our material mainly consists of samples, virtual instruments and sound from our Yamaha Motif. We do like to record vocals and guitars through a nice recording chain though, so we would still be using our external mic pres.

I know that the Lynx Aurora has really good sound and a wide staereo image for sure. What I need to know is how good or bad is the RME stuff?

[deve]

Lynx aurora 16 with rme aes 32. That's what I am using right now. Sounds like a dream.

[ten]

Had the RME fireface for a while, then went to Lynx C and now Lynx AES and Aurora.

Sound quality was noticably better on the LynxC over the fireface. There is a much nicer bottom end on the Lynx kit and the stereo image is wider.

The main reason for the switch though is the software/drivers of the RME.

A few of us on the Nuendo forums had been testing certain setups with certain projects. The fireface (and later other RME kit) was giving odd results where if you save a project at a certain point, reloading it from that exact same point would have an increased cpu usage that could not be fixed without disabling plugins. This was named the 'reload bug' :) The same thing did not happen with the Lynx kit which worked perfectly when re-opening a project each time.

Another problem with the RME was you could not take the cpu to its max before getting dropouts. Quite the opposite, you would start getting drop outs at 80/70/60 % cpu useage depending on scard buffer size. This also did not happen on the Lynx which would happily goto 90-95% at each buffer size before getting drop outs.

The worst of all though was the RME top man matthias dismissing these findings as user error or system problems and point blank refusing to discuss the issues any longer.

Needless to say my fireface was up on ebay the day after and a Lynx C installed a week later and I have never looked back.

Anyone interested in the actual posts on the Nuendo forum and I will dig them out so you can make up your own minds. I personally will never touch another piece of RME kit and try to warn any potential buyers of these problems.

The Lynx stuff simply works and sounds amazing. The tech support guys are always about on the Lynx studio forum to help people out.

tom

[trigger]

Originally Posted by ten

Sound quality was noticably better on the LynxC over the fireface. There is a much nicer bottom end on the Lynx kit and the stereo image is wider.

I don't understand how conversion quality and stereo image width are related?

(Maybe a bit off topic, but I'm still learning)

[chandlersonic]

Originally Posted by limey222

Yes, that's me, I chickened out at the last minute, but now I considering selling all over again.

I really can't afford to get to where I want to be with Lynx equipment, it will just cost me too much. We are not a big commercial studio, we take in some outside work but a lot of the material that we record is for our own releases. I want to be able to stream 24 analog tracks out of my DAW into my analog console. I CAN afford to do it with RME products if I can live with the sound and imaging. Our material mainly consists of samples, virtual instruments and sound from our Yamaha Motif. We do like to record vocals and guitars through a nice recording chain though, so we would still be using our external mic pres.

I know that the Lynx Aurora has really good sound and a wide staereo image for sure. What I need to know is how good or bad is the RME stuff?

I would really stick with Lynx if I were you. You could sell your Aurora 8 ( to me!! , actually I got a 2192 instead and OH MY GOD I'm in heaven ), keep the aes16 and then buy a used aurora 16.
I'd rather have 16 channels of Aurora than 24 RME honestly. Just wait a little and get the extra 8 later, maybe get something really nice like Mytek.

[headz]

Originally Posted by chandlersonic

I would really stick with Lynx if I were you. You could sell your Aurora 8 ( to me!! , actually I got a 2192 instead and OH MY GOD I'm in heaven ), keep the aes16 and then buy a used aurora 16.
I'd rather have 16 channels of Aurora than 24 RME honestly. Just wait a little and get the extra 8 later, maybe get something really nice like Mytek.

yes with that recomended upgrade of mixing aurora16 later with mytek/whatsoever you'll quickly be in phaseing heaven as soon as you use more than outputs 1-16 , even if its just a few samples every converter from a different brand/range will be little off to the auroras due to converter design...

only exception is if you use outputs 17-24 for effects/non phase critic material so it doesn't harm your overall mix

[RME Support]

Hello,

with all due respect, I'd like to make a few comments on some of the following statements...

Originally Posted by ten

A few of us on the Nuendo forums had been testing certain setups with certain projects. The fireface (and later other RME kit) was giving odd results where if you save a project at a certain point, reloading it from that exact same point would have an increased cpu usage that could not be fixed without disabling plugins. This was named the 'reload bug' :) The same thing did not happen with the Lynx kit which worked perfectly when re-opening a project each time.

Both the Fireface and the Lynx are totally oblivious of the fact that plugins even exist. The entire process of rendering audio from audio files, plugins, or realtime effects etc. takes place entirely inside the application, including "reloading". There is no way that any audio card (except maybe dedicated DSP cards) can be influenced by such a "reload" bug.

The audio interface receives and plays back the resulting audio stream through its ASIO driver. It can and will not differentiate in any way between signals generated by plugins or the playing back of audio files.

Another problem with the RME was you could not take the cpu to its max before getting dropouts. Quite the opposite, you would start getting drop outs at 80/70/60 % cpu useage depending on scard buffer size. This also did not happen on the Lynx which would happily goto 90-95% at each buffer size before getting drop outs.

This is comparing apples and oranges, i.e. PCI and Firewire audio, and it is not an RME issue. And I doubt that the Lynx (or any other soundcard) allows 95% CPU load at lowest latencies (1.5 or 3 ms or so).

The worst of all though was the RME top man matthias dismissing these findings as user error or system problems and point blank refusing to discuss the issues any longer.

For a reason, I would say... He knows the Fireface and its driver are in no way involved in rendering or (re)loading plugins. To the best of my knowledge, this test was also carried out with only one specific plug (Magneto). It's recently been discussed on the RME forum (again).

Anyone interested in the actual posts on the Nuendo forum and I will dig them out so you can make up your own minds. I personally will never touch another piece of RME kit and try to warn any potential buyers of these problems.

I would personally only go so far if I was really sure of the exact reason of an issue... And even if this were a Fireface issue(hypothetically), why would you include other RME products (PCI stuff, converters, preamps) in your "warnings"?

The tech support guys are always about on the Lynx studio forum to help people out.

So are we (on the RME newsgroup). We even visit other fora to help RME users solve problems...

Regards,
Daniel Fuchs
RME