Sujet Apogee Ensemble vs RME Fireface

Hors sujet : Salut le druide ;) Ca va ?

Citation : Ensemble user here, I tried the FF800 and the Ensemble, the FF800 was good, but the DAC/ADC wasn't quite as good (even though on paper it appears better) to my ears, it felt more spongy and basically just about similar to my old Alesis interface (with a slightly lower noise floor), it has that consumer "loudness" sound and overall balance to my ears. Latency on the FF was superb, but the Ensemble seems to be about the same tbh. RME give better service and suport than Apogee, but Apogees support was still pretty decent.

The RME software while powerful was not too stable for me and definitely could do with some major work useability wise, the Ensemble software is very simple and easy to use, but I can't find anything apart from custom clock speeds that the RME software allows you to do and the Maestro software doesn't, routing wise it's all there and seems to work fine, the Ensembles software integrates very well in the Apple environment and especially well in Logic, but the big caveat here is that it's only compatible with the Mac, not the PC. RME have lots of updates and support their product very well fixing bugs very rapidly indeed, Apogee take longer.

In the end I went with the Ensemble because i could get it for only $100 more than the FF, it had vastly better pres, the DAC while dramatically different allowed me to see just ridiculous amount of clarity and detail that were not visible at all with the RME, the ADC felt about the same or maybe marginally better on the Ensemble with a slightly fuller sound. As an example recording electric bass dl through both units the Ensemble gave me the instrument in full, frets strings detail, body, the RME was close but sounded flatter and more boxy somehow, it didn't have the high or low end as tight and lacked real detail. This to me showed the dramatic improvement in the pre's on the Ensemble, but switching the pres off gives exactly the same sound (only quieter) which makes me feel that the RME's signal path is doing some other stuff that I'm not too fond of. The RME's end sound though is closer to what most people will be listening to your music with, and the Ensemble isn't a totally clean output, it's incredibly clear, but to the point where it's almost a form of details enhancement and is radically different from the final output. That's double edged, it's great for spotting mistakes and mixing, but bad for mastering.

Bear in mind that there is a lot of snake oil in this area, ADC/DAC chips are cheap and generally seem to be a pretty minor factor in the overal sound quality of these devices (i.e. they're all pretty much excellent and at a level where you would be hard pressed to hear the difference that the chip makes, it's the signal chain that makes the real difference), I believe that the Ensemble actually uses rather more expensive chips than the FF (some Cirrus Logic chip), but case in point here - that doesn't mean much as the FF uses the same chip as the Rosetta! However that doesn't actually make the conversion sound the same (just as e.g. using the same valve in two different circuits wont make them both sound the same).

You'll find both RME and Apogee users are pretty rabid, FF users are adamant that their units sound the same and are as good as a Rosetta (not true, but it's at the point of diminishing returns where it's not very different at all), Apogee Users are sure that their kit is inherently better (also not true, it's overpriced and just different sounding but with very good integration with Apple kit). They're both high quality units and wont stop you from producing a top 40 hit, Apogees have been used for a lot of hits, I'm sure RME's also have been in the signal chain for a fair few too.

I would say that there is little point in paying more for a convertor unless you have incredibly sensitive ears and can really tell a big difference, a convertor that's $4000 is not going to be 2X better than one that's $2000, in fact beyond the $1500 range it's so close that most engineers wouldn't be able to really tell the difference without repeated play and listening out specifically to try and find differences. Some seem to think that the differences mount up with many tracks, maybe that's true, but I wonder how many tracks are needed to really tell.

Citation : I've used the RME FF quite a bit, but now have the Ensemble, and I'm very happy with it indeed. As others have said, the mic pres are really excellent and totally useable, and the conversion is at a level where you don't need to worry it is letting your sound down. Integration with Logic is superb. The two channels of pre's with inserts come in very handy for patching in a compressor when tracking, and the 8 channels of ADAT make it very expandable. Performance wise, it is on a totally different level than your typical 'prosumer' interface, though I'd also put the Metric Halo and FF up there with it, with slightly different features, strengths and weaknesses. Personal preference has much to do with it... bottom line, you can get tremendous results from all three.