Well I hope you use a condom.Retired EE, active AH.
Well I hope you use a condom.Retired EE, active AH.
Trivia;
Firewire (IEEE 1394) was standardized around 1995 and had a speed of 400 Mbit/s, very convenient for plug-n-play digital data transfer, etc.
USB 1.0 was standardized in 1996 but was slow AF with pathetic 1.5 Mbit/s, it was not until 2001 with USB 2.0 that USB reached the speed of 480 Mbit/s but by then Firewire was the go-to for a ton of studio equipment and remained so for at least another decade.
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Hopefully USB will be backwards compatible.... forever.
quod erat demonstrandumWell I hope you use a condom.
I have a Quantum 2 that has served me well for 5 years (and is just getting replaced by an RME UCX II). Lowest latency I ever encountered and excellent driver support. But… the newly released interfaces don't have much in common with the original devices and why they were (and still are) so good: extremely low latency due to Thunderbolt and minimalist software (e.g. no direct monitoring).Fwiw, Presonus has 4 new of their Quantum series interfaces. Looking pretty good IMO.
Seems to be going the way of the dodo, like Firewire.
The new ones are a downgrade if you care about latency though, the thunderbolt quantum 2626 verion had a RTL at 2ms, while the new ones clocks in at almost 5ms. Still good but...
NO I am not thinking of Thunderbolt.How do you figure spdif is obsolete? It's the most common way to digitally connect multi fx processors to audio interfaces, and a standard feature on audio interfaces above entry level units. Maybe you're thinking of thunderbolt?
Most people wouldn't need an Apollo 6X except to have something to brag about on the internet. I'd consider one if I were opening a commercial recording studio.I'll give a bit of advice regarding interfaces; random thoughts:
I have an Apollo 6x and I love it. Not cheap compared to some interfaces out there (but not ridiculous, either) but the price point reflects my level of seriousness. All the same, it's not even their top of the line rackmount Apollo (it's actually the bottom tier rackmount).
UA as most know has been around forever and are legendary with their studio equipment. LA-2A, 610 preamp, 1176, etc...
They also sell the desktop Apollo Twin (there was an X4 at one time; I don't keep up with their stuff everyday), and the budget Volt.
Looks like the lowest priced unit is the single-channel Volt for $139
Now the difference between the Volt series and the Apollo series is the Apollo has SHARC chips in them (less or more depending on the model), which allow you to offload UA plugin processing instead of bringing your PC to its knees (the Volt lineup is simply an interface).
The latest big thing from UA in regards to the above is they have been offering their (killer, I must add) plugins in Native format, meaning you don't need UA hardware to run to them. And they keep releasing more as time goes on. In the past, people used to complain about the UA "ecosystem" and how you *had* to have an Apollo (with SHARC chips) to run *any* of their plugins; not anymore.
Here's a current list of all of UA's UAD Native plugins:
Which UAD plug-ins are available natively and in UAD Spark?
Below is a list of UAD plug-in titles that are available to run natively (i.e. without an Apollo or Satellite device) and are also included in Spark subscriptions.
Compressors
- API® 2500 Bus Compressor
- Capitol Mastering Compressor
- dbx® 160 Compressor / Limiter
- Empirical Labs® EL8 Distressor Compressor
- Fairchild® Tube Limiter Collection
- Manley® Variable Mu Limiter Compressor
- Teletronix LA-2A Collection
- Teletronix® LA-2A Tube Compressor
- Teletronix LA-3A Audio Leveler
- UA 1176 Collection
- UA 175B & 176 Tube Compressor Collection
Reverbs, Delays, & Modulation
- Brigade Chorus
- Capitol Chambers
- Galaxy Tape Echo
- Hitsville Reverb Chambers
- Lexicon® 224 Digital Reverb
- Pure Plate Reverb
- Studio D Chorus
- Waterfall Rotary Speaker
- Sound City Studios
Preamps, EQ & Tape
*Neve® 1073® Preamp and EQ is included in the Spark subscription but is only available to purchase for registered Apollo/UAD-2 owners.
- API® Vision Channel Strip Plus
- Avalon VT-737 Tube Channel Strip
- Century Tube Channel Strip™
- Helios Type 69 Preamp and EQ Collection
- Hitsville EQ Collection
- Manley® Massive Passive EQ
- Manley Tube Preamp
- Manley VOXBOX Channel Strip
- Neve® 1073® Preamp and EQ*
- Oxide Tape Recorder
- Pultec Passive EQ Collection
- Studer A800 Tape Machine
- Verve Analog Machines
UAD Instruments
- Electra 88 Vintage Keyboard Studio
- Moog Minimoog®
- Opal Morphing Synthesizer
- PolyMAX Synth
- Ravel Grand Piano
- Waterfall B3
UAD Microphone
Note: The UAD Microphone plug-ins require a UA Standard Series microphone or a UA Sphere microphone to operate with the following plug-ins, respectively:
For more information about UA microphones, visit this page.
Important note: Capitol Mastering Compressor, Electra 88 Vintage Keyboard Studio, Moog Minimoog®, Opal Morphing Synthesizer, PolyMAX Synth, Ravel Grand Piano, Waterfall B3, Waterfall Rotary Speaker, Sound City Studios, and Verve Analog Machines are only available as native UAD plug-ins and there are no UAD-2 DSP counterparts for them. All other plug-ins listed in this article are both available natively and as UAD-2 DSP plug-ins.
Disregard what I wrote.Where did you read about that? I thought nobody did a proper test so far...
But check out this, the new ones has a custom driver apparently, but this guy didn't do a proper RTL test. But doesn't look to be near the thunderbolt ones.
Yeha he just read out the numbers his daw reported. For the previous version Presonus really hammered down the fact they had super low latency, not it's not mentioned with a word. BUT they can inform us it has:The numbers he's talking about are higher than on my Motu M2 at least. No idea whether he did a proper RTL test (most people actually don't, they just rely on the numbers whatever driver dialogs throw out - which, unfortunately to this day, sometimes are wrong).