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RME Babyface Pro FS Portable Interface Review

MC_RME

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Correct. There is no change in tech specs when using the external power supply. As Amir mentioned the external power input serves several purposes:

- stand-alone usage (mic preamp, DAC, etc)

- use with an iPad as audio interface

And as last resort in case bus power fails for whatever reason. Some older computers might have insufficient bus power, then the ps will help.
This will be noticable when one uses the unit to the max. 2 mics with phantom power engaged plus driving low impedance phones at max level plus setting the LEDs to max brightness (default is medium) will cause the highest power consumption.
 
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jae

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I wonder how this compares to the new budget motu offerings (m4 and m2). Hopefully you can test an M4 soon.
 
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amirm

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I wonder how this compares to the new budget motu offerings (m4 and m2). Hopefully you can test an M4 soon.
I think someone has an M2 to offer for testing.
 

jae

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I think someone has an M2 to offer for testing.
Would definitely be interested in seeing that. Have you ever tested any in-line mic preamp like the cloudlifter, fethead etc?
 

Joachim Herbert

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@amirm Thank you for measuring this. Will take delivery of my babyface on monday. Will use it for rew measurements, LP digitizing and maybe first steps into podcasting. Currently use an audient id14 and a tascam us122. While there is no real need to replace these, I love better haptics and sq.
 

Interference

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Audiophiles tend to reason w.r.t. what they can see and touch and they don't realise that the "power supply" of a device does not stop at the plug but it's actually "done" inside the device itself :)
 
D

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  • the driver supports multi-client, in other words you can have multiple ASIO and WASAPI streams playing simultaneously. Most interfaces mute all other sounds when ASIO is being used

That is not multi-client. Multi-client ASIO is defined as being able to utilize the hardware over several ASIO active softwares, I.E. running two DAW's at the same time and both having access to the hardware at the same time. Most interfaces support this, even the thesycon driver has this functionality in it's driver spec and this is the most used driver for audio devices on the market being utilized by soundcraft, zoom, behringer, and SSL.

The issue you described is very easy to fix, you simply need to match your DAW sample rate to windows' sample rate for the output device. It's a super common issue for whatever reason. Every interface I've tried supports this which would include devices from roland, behringer, SSL, and motu. If your interface doesn't support this it is an outlier.
 

Tks

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One feature I would like to point out, related to the SNR measurement: The XLR output max level is +19 dBu balanced. This new FS version has a switch on the bottom that reduces the output level to +4 dBu max. This is very useful as active monitors these days are very sensitive. At +19 one would have to reduce the level in the digital domain a lot, loosing about 15 dB of SNR. Thanks to the switch the full SNR is moved down to that lower level.

Any idea why this is the case? Likewise for almost all newer audio products. Insanely sensitive, insanely low impedance. A fellow was asking me elsewhere if a THX 789 is good enough for his 12 ohm IEMs, and instinctualy I thought, of course the 789 is good, until I realized I had to make sure after realizing how low of an impedance that was.

What is up with this? Is it just easier now, was there some sort of manufacturing paradigm shift?

please red spectral analyzer color option for the RME Dac
 
D

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Any idea why this is the case? Likewise for almost all newer audio products. Insanely sensitive, insanely low impedance. A fellow was asking me elsewhere if a THX 789 is good enough for his 12 ohm IEMs, and instinctualy I thought, of course the 789 is good, until I realized I had to make sure after realizing how low of an impedance that was.

What is up with this? Is it just easier now, was there some sort of manufacturing paradigm shift?


This is about the xlr outputs not the headphone outs.

The reason is so you can have a volume knob that you can actually adjust. If my interface was set to output 19+dbu then I'd probably be able to set my volume knob at say 7-8oclock with any increase resulting in way too loud levels. The knob would practically be off at that point. With it set to +4dbu I have a much larger usable range on the volume knob.
 

hyperplanar

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That is not multi-client. Multi-client ASIO is defined as being able to utilize the hardware over several ASIO active softwares, I.E. running two DAW's at the same time and both having access to the hardware at the same time. Most interfaces support this, even the thesycon driver has this functionality in it's driver spec and this is the most used driver for audio devices on the market being utilized by soundcraft, zoom, behringer, and SSL.

The issue you described is very easy to fix, you simply need to match your DAW sample rate to windows' sample rate for the output device. It's a super common issue for whatever reason. Every interface I've tried supports this which would include devices from roland, behringer, SSL, and motu. If your interface doesn't support this it is an outlier.
Yes, but I meant multi-client in a general sense, not just for ASIO. I should have worded that better I guess. See page 20 of the very informative manual: https://www.rme-audio.de/downloads/bface_pro_e.pdf

BF4034E6-EDA6-453C-9021-6F2CC72FF80E.png


Hmm, I remember using ASIO4ALL on my computers built-in output and Focusrite drivers on my 2i4 resulting in not being able to output sound from Windows whenever an ASIO client such as Ableton or REW was open. I always set everything to 44.1 KHz. So you’re saying you can have an ASIO DAW open and listen to YouTube in a browser in most interfaces? Are these outliers or has the situation changed in the last several years?
 
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D

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Yes, but I meant multi-client in a general sense, not just for ASIO. I should have worded that better I guess. See page 20 of the very informative manual: https://www.rme-audio.de/downloads/bface_pro_e.pdf

View attachment 57372

Hmm, I remember using ASIO4ALL on my computers built-in output and Focusrite drivers on my 2i4 resulting in not being able to output sound from Windows whenever an ASIO client such as Ableton or REW was open. I always set everything to 44.1 KHz. So you’re saying you can have an ASIO DAW open and listen to YouTube in a browser in most interfaces? Are these outliers or has the situation changed in the last several years?


Off the top of my head focusrite is the only budget interface I used that doesn't support it, ASIO4all doesn't support it. I've been writing and using many different interfaces for the past say 15 years and quite honestly all of them supported asio+wdm simultaneously. My old maudio delta 1010 rack could do it.

I currently use a motu m4 which supports it, although some potential driver issues (motu says it my computer, I say it's not, we'll see.) are making me want to try RME. I have to say though what the hell is with their U.S. pricing? It's cheaper for me order their stuff overseas and have it shipped to me than it is to buy it in the U.S. and not by a little bit but like 100-$150.
 
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hyperplanar

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Off the top of my head focusrite is the only budget interface I used that doesn't support it, ASIO4all doesn't support it. I've been writing and using many different interfaces for the past say 15 years and quite honestly all of them supported asio+wdm simultaneously. My old maudio delta 1010 rack could do it.
Huh, interesting! I guess I just had the bad luck of trying out two different ASIO implementations that don't support it :)

I currently use a motu m4 which supports it, although some potential driver issues (motu says it my computer, I say it's not, we'll see.) are making me want to try RME. I have to say though what the hell is with their U.S. pricing? It's cheaper for me order their stuff overseas and have it shipped to me than it is to buy it in the U.S. and not by a little bit but like 100-$150.
Yeah, I think the pricing here is on the high side. Can probably blame the distributor for that. I only picked up my Babyface Pro when it was on sale for $649 or something like that at B&H four years ago, and I didn't have to pay sales tax at the time. Don't think I would have bought it for the full price. All of RME's stuff exudes quality in every aspect though so you definitely get what you're paying for. This is one of those products where I've never felt like I needed an upgrade after buying it.
 

Earfonia

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Nice review, thanks @amirm !

I use RME Babyface Pro for many things including IEM measurement. But since the 3.5mm headphone output of the Babyface Pro has around 2.4 ohm (measured) output impedance, I have to use an external headphone amplifier for my IEM measurement to get lower, around 0.1 ohm output impedance. With Babypro FS I can use the 3.5mm headphone output directly since the output impedance is already around 0.1 ohm. I'm wondering will there ever be an upgrade exchange program to exchange Babyface Pro to Babyface Pro FS at reasonable cost :)

Frequency Response Measurement:
20191221_234320s.jpg

Impedance Curve Measurement:
20200307_111554s.jpg
 
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Doodski

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I'm wondering will there ever be an upgrade program to exchange Babyface Pro to Babyface Pro FS at reasonable cost :)
That would require a very extensive modification to the internal circuitry. Most likely 100% that will never happen.
 

Blumlein 88

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Would definitely be interested in seeing that. Have you ever tested any in-line mic preamp like the cloudlifter, fethead etc?
Found this for the Cloudlifter and the Triton Fethead. Measured with an AP.
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/showpost.php?p=7041193&postcount=78

Here's the bottom line:

FetHead Noise: -79 db at 5 k hz
Cloudlifter noise: -88db at 5k hz.

Frequency response: FetHead response not flat, up 3 db from 20 hz to 500 hz, down -3 db at 40 k hz.

Cloudlifter: Flat response, down -3 db at 50 k hz.

THD: FetHead .5% at -30 db input, .2% at -35 dbu input levels.
Cloudlifter .05% at -35 dbu input, .09% at -30 dbu input levels.

CMRR (common mode rejection ratio, or noise immunity):
FetHead -29 dbu, Cloudlifter -39 dbu using a very clean 48 volt supply fed into matched Dale CMF55 6.81k resistors.

I found the FetHead to be sensitive to connection problems and pin contamination. Any movement and the readings would skew. I ended up cleaning the XLR pins on the Audio Precision to get good readings.

I used a 50 ohm output impedance from the AP and 100k input impedance to eliminate any loading effects.
 
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