Comparaison RME fireface 800

Citation : Tu est certain de ça? Il me semblait qu'elle étaient équipées toutes deux du même steadyclock.

Citation : Franchement je pense qu'on arrive à un tel niveau de qualité que les éventuelles différences sont imperceptibles pour les utilisateurs que nous sommes... Déjà j'ai du mal à voir la différence en terme de qualité de conversion entre la Multiface première génération et la Fireface 800 !

Citation : Mes besoins, vous les connaissez, il y a-t-il une différence de qualité entre le gold et les préampls rme? Si oui, cela vaut-il la peine de prendre la petite fireface plutôt que la grande?

Citation :
RME 400- Apogee killer?
Oct 27, 2006
Posted by Boccaccio70 from LA/NYC/Washingtom


Although many a peer, distributor, online and staff had recommended The RME line of audio converters to me, the word "Apogee" was always lurking in the back of my mind. I write music for Bravo/IFC/OLN networks, so it's not like I even need a "Hi-end" converter, such is the state of TV audio these days. When your music isnt fighting needless graphic "SFX", the Union "play it safe" NYC mixers bury the music beneath 110db voice-over (even though I keep reminding the network creative directors that the best ads and promo's seem to use printed words and let the music carry the spot...( anyone else notice that?)) But my motives regarding a new audio interface were not about my day gig. I wanted, finally, a converter for my night's pleasure; working on "my" music. The stuff I do for no over the shoulder master. I was sick and tired of the blurry, collapsed soundstages and lack of depth most intefaces give you; the ho-hum mic pre's, limited I/O options. But most of all, terrible clocking. Clocking is what seperates the men from the boys in the world of Digital audio.

If you have never heard a dead on clock streaming your audio, you don't know what your mix is missing. With a rock steady clock, your soundstage gains spacious imaging,, back-wall depth, and a sense of destinct character melded onto every instrument. You hear how much rosin a violinist applied THAT evening,. So, with reservations, I tested an RME 400. I was ready to be underwhelmed, as it cost half of the apogee ensemble, but I also knew this german company had been building a no excuses reputation, from their hammerfall legacy through to the Fireface 800. So what the heck, I gave it a shot.... I had read that the 400 was not just the 800's little brother, already lauded for it's great mic pre's, flexible routing system, great clock, and aggresive upgrades and attentive support. But beyond all this, This new 400 model incorporated new technology, one of these being a jitter suppression clocking innovation. After an easy hook up, I slipped in the band "Morphine"'s 1995 release, "Yes". No gold plated 24 bit remaster of "Dark Side of the Moon" for me....I wanted to hear "real" music, raw, not tricked up studio majesty....I wanted to hear just how detailed Mark Sandman's notoriously whisky voice and the deep , character drenched 2 string slide bass sounded, how much "air" surrounded the ride cymbal, how much back wall I could hear off the crack of the snare, how much depth there was to the layered and looped sax. Simply put, I was slack-jawed stunned. My Genelec 1031A's suddenly sounded Like someone had removed 2 inches of pocket lint stuffed inside my saran wrapped ears. I then sat and listened to that album for the "First time"...My only equivelant experience was hearing Peter Murphy;s "Love Hysteria" on a pair of $18,000 Apogee (no relation) Diva's, 6 foot tall ribbon monitors being powered by two 40G Krell Mono block amp back in 1992. And thats 40K per block. Did I mention the CD player cost 20K? I wont name names, but the owner of this glorious Home system won a few grammy's for producer of the yesr back in the mid 90's The rest of the night was spent jumping back and forth between my own work and Albums I had always wondered "what was it like to be in the control room when they mixed this?" Suddenly, it was 5am and I felt 20 years younger ( or maybe it was my ears that felt that) Now, maybe if I had a george massenburg designed studio with 150K of acoustical treatment, The Apogee converters might have the edge in lowet octave bottom and a very slight edge in top end air...but I'm no fool. From what I would be saving getting the RME,, I was able to get another part of the Vienna symphonic cube collection. I got the chamber cube, because suddenly I wanted to hear the intimate rosin, and with the RME 400, I knew I would be. And I still has enough left over to buy a UAD plug in ( I got the Neve 1073 EQ ....another flat out killer from UA!!) I know Apogee has a certain "glamour" branding, And some people feel more comfy buying a known quantity, But if your ears can tell the difference in a typical project studio like the ones me and a million other grinders inhabit,, then your ears belong in Bell laboratory, not a studio, because you are 1 in a billion The RME 400 is simply superb. I would have thought my 2 UAD1 cards were this years smartest personal purchase. They came in a very close second, but top honors go to to the RME 400. Them German cats just slayed the dragon.

I am buying one as soon as I get paid for a dumb hunting show theme song for OLN. What we do for Love....