Lets have real talk about audio interfaces

[rod_zero]

After skimming through most of this thread, one very important thing really hasn't been talked about: the quality of components in the computer itself!

You can hook the best interface up to a crappy computer and still get clicks and pops at low latency folks!!!

what parts exactly?

A computer dedicated for DAW should have a decent CPu and enough RAM and HD/ SSD space, nothing more is needed.

a good power supply is somehow under-rated.
cooling...

anyway Woz thought long and hard about it all a billion years ago, one reason once you go mac, you never go back. In my honest and hard-earned user experience.

Really?

I have build my PC for a couple of decades and all of them have been great, in my honest and hard earned PC builder experience, as well as user of Mac laptops, your opinion is narrow and simplistic.

And yeah a good PSU is required, but there are many good brands with excellent quality.

[rod_zero]

BTW let's talk about the excellent thermal design by apple in all their line that forces CPU to throttle, talk about "great parts" that can't perform well. LOL, macfanbois are a joke.

[softska]

anyway Woz thought long and hard about it all a billion years ago, one reason once you go mac, you never go back. In my honest and hard-earned user experience.

Would've agreed until these new round of mac with T2 chip raising hell for USB audio interface (see RME forum)

It is nice to stop thinking about computer and get on with music, but Apple is actively making it harder with ever OS/hardware upgrade

[Dasheesh]

I first touched a mac in the mid 80's, when they were first introduced to school kids. I still have an 84 mac in the closet somewhere under a pile of shit. I have had G series, towers, macbooks, half a dozen macbook pros, ... after Jobs died I noticed, like everyone else, the quality going down. A couple of years ago the keyboard on one of my newer macs went out. I have always worked on my own macs and replaced parts and such... so I just opened it up and started dissembling to replace the keyboard... that was NOT a good idea. Everything was glued and micron sized and ten layers deep. Long story short... I had a macbookpro in pieces. No problem I thought, I'll just take it to the macstore... they would have to do the same to replace the keyboard anyway, and I've done half the work for them. I'll just buck up and shell out for the keyboard replacement and have them reassemble.

I took it to the mac store... they sat me in line, and I waited. then someone came up and asked if I had an appointment. AN appointment? no, I didn't know I needed one. "oh, I'm sorry sir, you will have to make an appointment to see the MAC DOCTOR." dude, I laughed out loud at that 20 something bitch so hard they had to escort me out of the store. I went and sat in my car and got really angry TBH. Like really angry. I thought it was a f**king joke... how could you not? a MAC DOCTOR. O.K. so, I went home and called to make an appointment. which turned out to be later in the week. Good grief ... now several weeks without my powerbook... errrr... excuse me.... macbookpro. The big day came and I went in and sat like a good little boy in my chair for the attendant. "yes, I have an appointment" ... she took me to a waiting room... a f**king waiting room. This has to be a joke right? I'm sitting there.. a man in his 40's, surrounded by hipsters and college kids all embarrassed, like, I seriously do NOT belong here. I waited my turn and finally this chick comes out and I shove my laptop at her and give her the story, and what I require, fully prepared to shell out the cash for the repair... and she gave me a face of horror... like... she was in shock and awe that I tried to work on it myself. It was UNHEARD OF. only the most certified of special ops should be privileged to see the inside of the computer that I BOUGHT. The very thought... So she gives it back to me and tells me to buy a new one.

That was the last time I bought a mac. I would much rather buy a dell xps and put up with microsoft hell, then be looked at like a 12 yr old and embarrassed like that again.

BTW, I just hit the buy on an ESI maya22. seems like the perfect fit for my needs and I'm hearing people get latency of 5 MS with those things. The drivers have been recently updated.

[pc999]

That was the last time I bought a mac. I would much rather buy a dell xps and put up with microsoft hell, then be looked at like a 12 yr old and embarrassed like that again.

Or you can go Linux...

These days there is quite a few good options.

[Dasheesh]

meet me know when it works. i'm not spending all day looking at my options and downloading to do the most mundane of tasks. y'all linux guys can't even decide which version to use.

[pc999]

Ubuntu works fine.

[rod_zero]

Too much time and effort for making music on Linux. Maybe someday when audio interface manufacturers make drivers for.

[acYm]

I first touched a mac in the mid 80's, when they were first introduced to school kids...

that was a legendary post. I had to come back and read it again.

[Dasheesh]

UPDATE TIME!

My Maya22 just arrived an hour ago. I went strait to the website and installed the driver. It was lickity split easy. No hassle. Just to get it out there... YOU NEED TO INSTALL THE DRIVER BEFORE YOU PLUG IN THE INTERFACE (in-case someone is considering the same interface). So can I tell you. I am over joyed at this purchase right now. It's lighter then I expected it to be... but a high quality sturdy (what feels like aluminum) build. i have it jacked into a usb3 port, and at 24/44.1 with a 128 sample buffer on windows 10/64 I'm getting..... wait for it..... 2.9 ms latency. Yeah, you heard that right. It's heart pounding, adrenaline pumping, cold sweat inducing latency. No lie. I can't stop playing right now. I have chill bumps. The sound reaches my ears before I hit the keys. I've honestly never experienced anything like it. The crazy thing is... it's so rock solid, I can probably take it down even further. I don't know, I haven't tried yet... but playing dune3 at audio rate has given no pops yet. super stoked.

at this point, my search is over until next year, when I take a look at the new offerings out there. So, feel free take over the thread with any questions you might have about an audio interfaces you are looking at, or talk about a good audio interface and give us your experience. This thread is not about sales pitches, but real world audio interface experiences.

[Dasheesh]

^^^ a couple of addendums. the sound is very solid and detailed. i don't know what converters they are using, but it has a lot of presence, not airy like focusrite. also, this was the perfect interface for my traveling needs, but it won't be for everyone. there is no hardware volume knobs and such. both the audio outs and headphone jack are set to the same volume and such. it's all done with the driver software so it's a "set and forget" kind of thing.

[Dasheesh]

another small update. After several hours of playing around and testing, I found that on intense pads with lots of reverb I was getting the occasional pop. I have bumped it up to 256 sample buffer. It now gives me 6 ms latency. I can't complain because I was shooting for under 10, but I sure was enjoying that 3 ms latency, I have to say... ha.

[Dasheesh]

oh, we have a problem! i can no longer play my u-he synths in high quality mode! the esi drivers only go to 280 samples! looks like 256 is as high as i can go. when i tried going to 24/96 it screwed up my windows ten settings and threw it back into 16/44.1 . when i tried to reset it all to 48000 it went all screwy on me. we have bugs... i repeat, we have bugs. i don't know if it's reaper, windows, u-he, or esi... but we have bugs. it started when i loaded repro. i'm going to have to do some investigation.

[Dasheesh]

it's repro. it only happens on repro and none of my other high quality instruments. not even bazille on the most intense pads or ace or dune or mpowersynth. ONLY repro. imma take this to uhe.

[Dasheesh]

ok, final post on this because i don't want to leave it open ended. the problems were stemming from multiple sources. i had a few settings not quite dialed in, but also there seems to be a bug with 96000 setting. i don't think i can get their, but I don't use it anyway. i like 24/48, and at 24/48 i can now take it back down to 128 and get 3 ms latency. that's dope for now. may need to do some more refinement later.