Ok guys. Help me make up my mind. Currently sporting a Rosetta 800 96k. A buddy lent me a Lavry Blue AD / DA, and I was pretty impressed. I felt it did sound better than my Rosetta, but the difference was not night and day and the difference may or may not be worth the actual money spent. I did feel I could get slightly hotter levels and an overall open sound, but once again, the difference was very small. So I'm wondering if I should sell my Rosetta and invest in a Lavry Blue converter or maybe if I should instead get a Big Ben clock and call it a day. I do have a lot of digital stuff so I think the Big Ben would be a nice and more cost effective decision. Once again I am going to ask the question: If I clock my Rosetta to a big ben will I essentially have 8 channels of AD-16x and DA-16x?

i have a rosetta 800 i run with a big ben.. i would say get the big ben...
what kind of music do you record? that will play a roll...

mostly hip-hop and electronic music. my day job i write jingles so that covers the full spectrum. would you say the Big Ben has improved your AD/DA conversion of your Rosetta? Do you feel you got your money's worth?

Whuddup Ed?!

Heard a track of yours at the UCLA animation prom Saturday night; nice seeing your name up there; it sounded great!

Okay, to business:

Per a conversation I had with Max at Apogee a little over a year ago, the Big Ben on the Rosetta 800 pretty much gets you to AD/DA16x land. I don't own a Big Ben (yet), but I've rented one when I need it and clocked my Rosetta 800, DA-16, and RME card to it, and it's a subtle but worthwhile improvement, most noticeable I thought in imaging. Almost as worthwhile--if not even more--is the increased stability and control across all the WC enabled devices in your studio. It's such a pleasure to run master sync this way instead of always having to reset things and worry about errors, which I've sometimes gotten when running things like the PCM91 (no WC in) into the Apogee via AES into the RME/computer. I only wish my DAT deck had WC in.

I've since picked up more gear with WC in, so the Big Ben purchase is a matter of weeks--if not days--off.

See you soon hopefully!

pieter! hell yeah man. glad to see you on the slutz forum. thanks for the advice. i think a big ben will be in order soon.

yes the conversion did improve.. i also hooked the ben up to all my other gear im running digital and heard great improvments

Don't forget WC travels down AES & SPDIF - so you still get the benefit of your DAW clock passed on to your DAT (if you are feeding it via AES or SPDIF)

I think that the Rosetta 800 is more than adequate for the styles of music you're doing. No need to upgrade anything there IMO. Maybe a clock, but that's not going to make a night and day difference in your productions unless you're having clocking problems already.

How about a new sampler module or guitar, or some other slutty musical instrument to inspire your music?

Once you get past the minor miracle of sound traveling through wire... most differences are pretty small... until you start to add them up in which case little things can change the overall picture of big things.

We did some shootouts a couple of weeks ago with a Rosetta 800 vs. the Lynx Aurora... interesting stuff, nothing definitive, mostly for in-house perception, didn't try it against the Lavry, the RADAR kicked all of their asses [just trying to anticipate the myriad of potential/not answerable questions that tend to ensue around here].

For ****s and grins we added a Big Ben clock to the program... I like the sound of both converters more when the Big Ben was part of the program to when the Big Ben wasn't part of the program... it's a subjective thing, but that was my perception. I found that the bottom got tighter on the Rosetta 800 and the midrange a measure clearer... which I felt helped with the music we were playing through the converters but as always... YMMV

Peace.

Most electronic and hip hop is recorded on cheap (even 12-bit) samplers. You almost don't want it too clean, if you know what I mean. And jingles? These don't exactly require the highest audiophile resolution either.

I think you could spend your dough on something more useful than a clock, again, unless you're having clocking issues. How about a mic pre or eq?

I'd just like to comment on this "it doesn't matter too much if you're doing electronica" point of view that seems to come up often around here. I gotta disagree with this one... granted there is a place for 12-bit samples and other lo-fi goodies in this genre, but good/clean/punchy/high quality sound is a definate plus on some electronic material. Obviously if all the sounds are coming from vst's or samplers it's not going to be as relevant. But good electronica sounds are as complex as good e-guitar sounds and the like, and need adequate signal paths to capture them. If you feel you're losing something on the way into the box, then a converter upgrade might be worth it.

Agreed man. When you get to the point where you care so much about sound quality, fidelity, levels, punch, dynamics, etc..... Every little bit counts. No matter what kind of music you are writing.

I agree with you too. But I've already got a Massive Passive, 4 x API 560's, an STC-8, Eventide H8000 a Pendulum MDP-1A, and a Folcrom. I'm not super slutty. But i think these will do.