Hi, I have a Steinberg MR816x firewire interface and a Rossetta 200, I am interested in the Apogee Element because it has Apogee converters, which I like, and it has Thunderbolt. I am not using the Thunderbolt port on my 2011 iMac and I think I could benefit from the low latency.

But i am reading that Element users have similar roundtrip latency to mine. In Logic Pro X, with my MR816x I have 2.0 ms at 32 buffer and 96 kHz, which is very similar to the claims from Apogee (1.41 ms). Another example, I have 7.0 ms at 128 buffer and 48 kHz. I even have direct monitoring from the MR816x, which is also one of Apogee Element's advantages.

What's your experience with your Apogee Element roundtrip latency?

No one has an Apogee Element?

??

I have decently low latency at smaller buffer sizes (3.1ms roundtrip at 32 buffer, 4.6mn at 64 buffer for 44.1, 1.4ms / 32 and 2.1ms / 64 for 96k ) but these days I mostly record with a high buffer and use direct monitoring through Logic, which works really well. You can use the Apogee plugins for eq and compression if you want while tracking. I'll take my buffers down if I'm using an amp sim or soft synth, but that's pretty much the only time.

Are those Apogee plugins for free?

Not anymore. It depends on when you bought your Element. Early adopters got most of the plugs for free. You can call Apogee and see what they say.

Any other users? Has anyone compared Apogee Element and MR816x?

I only checked latency on my Element 46 when I purchased it. Since then, it hasn't being my main concern when recording. But I think this is the purpose of a good audio interface... forgetting that it even exists. My impression is that latency is pretty low, but I usually record at 48KHz. Other thing that can help with latency are the FX Rack plugins, which are currently (and finally) being able to run on the internal DSP of the Element or Ensemble interfaces.

The integration of direct monitoring with Logic (even without the plugins) gives you zero latency with any buffer speed and no need to exit the program and set up monitoring on a separate application. The only other way I know of to achieve that otherwise is to use another integrated software/hardware setup likeMOTU hardware with DP or Avid hardware with ProTools. Otherwise you need to either set your buffer low and use software monitoring and play the latency/dsp load game or monitor using the additional mixing capability of your interface (as with UAD Console).
All of these methods work, they just have different plusses and minuses. I've personally really enjoyed Direct Monitoring with the Apogee Element. I send my existing tracks to an Aux that is then fed to my main outs. That way I can easily turn all those tracks down until I get a comfortable level for my input tracks. When I'm done tracking I send those channels to the Aux as well. I tend not to track with any plugins, even though I have the Apogee Dual Path bundle.