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MOTU UltraLite-mk5 Review (Audio Interface)

Trell

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It works fine on Linux with no additional driver, not sure what you are talking about.

Michael

Reply from MOTU support with regards to class compliance on Windows 10:

"Class compliant support on Windows and Linux is very spotty. Some people have luck and some don't. This is why we only support Windows with drivers and don't support Linux at all. MacOS class compliant support is pretty full-proof on Apple's end, which is why we officially support MacOS and iOS. Although we'd love to fully support class compliant devices on all PC operating systems, I can't promise this will be something that's ever supported for these products. As I understand it, this is more of a limitation of PC operating systems than a limitation on our end. "
 

137tmxth

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Reply from MOTU support with regards to class compliance on Windows 10 [...]

Sure, no official support, but my M4 works fine in Linux (the M2 should too), and it seems people with @motu.com email addresses have even talked with the Linux kernel devs and sent patches on occasion. As for the UltraLites, going by comments on the web it seems they also work, but people have problems with the channel mappings jumping around.

As for whether MOTU makes bad USB audio class devices or Windows just has bad USB audio class drivers, I'm not qualified to comment on.
 

Tks

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Reply from MOTU support with regards to class compliance on Windows 10:

"Class compliant support on Windows and Linux is very spotty. Some people have luck and some don't. This is why we only support Windows with drivers and don't support Linux at all. MacOS class compliant support is pretty full-proof on Apple's end, which is why we officially support MacOS and iOS. Although we'd love to fully support class compliant devices on all PC operating systems, I can't promise this will be something that's ever supported for these products. As I understand it, this is more of a limitation of PC operating systems than a limitation on our end. "

How odd, can't get certified class compliance for Windows. It's not exactly a small userbase there >_>
 

Trell

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How odd, can't get certified class compliance for Windows. It's not exactly a small userbase there >_>

My thought as well, especially for smaller devices like M2 and M4 that is quite limited in their functionality compared to the UltraLite-mk5. They are low cost and competes with other inexpensive audio interfaces.

In fairness, RME does not have proper class compliance for all their devices as well: The RME ADI-2 DAC and ADI-2 PRO has full class compliance on Windows, but the new UCX II does not. In the manual for the UCX II it says explicitly that class compliance is only for making iPad work with their software and that Windows will recognize the UCX II but not load drivers. RME knows how to implement class compliance but decided not to depending on likely use case.
 
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Tks

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My thought as well, especially for smaller devices like M2 and M4 that is quite limited in their functionality compared to the UltraLite-mk5. They are low cost and competes with other inexpensive audio interfaces.

In fairness, RME does not have proper class compliance for all their devices as well: The RME ADI-2 DAC and ADI-2 PRO has full class compliance on Windows, but the new UCX II does not. In the manual for the UCX II it says explicitly that class compliance is only for making iPad work with their software and that Windows will recognize the UCX II but not load drivers. RME knows how to implement class compliance but decided not to depending on likely use case.

Seems like product segmentation. I doubt they did this because it comes at some crazy cost. Certainly not R&D since they have shown they know how to do it.

At least Windows recognizes it I suppose.
 

jonljacobi

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I actually promised myself to never to buy another MOTU product after they abandoned a MIDI patch bay that I owned by not supplying drivers for the then new Windows XP.
 

137tmxth

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I actually promised myself to never to buy another MOTU product after they abandoned a MIDI patch bay that I owned by not supplying drivers for the then new Windows XP.

How old was the product at that point? Just a few years?

(and yeah ideally companies should at least release the specs so somebody else can write drivers if they aren't updating their own drivers for an old product anymore... but that almost never happens)
 

jonljacobi

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How old was the product at that point? Just a few years?

(and yeah ideally companies should at least release the specs so somebody else can write drivers if they aren't updating their own drivers for an old product anymore... but that almost never happens)

A couple of years at least and I perhaps got the product late in its life-cycle. I actually found someone who'd written their own, or reworked the old one for XP. Can't remember exactly. Regardless, it would've been a minimal effort. They just didn't care.
 
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Trell

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A couple of years at least and I perhaps got the product late in its life-cycle. I actually found someone who'd written their own, or reworked the old one for XP. Can't remember exactly. Regardless, it would've been a minimal effort. They just didn't care.

This is why I'm hesitant to buy the UltraLite as it's getting to be quite expensive, at least for me. It does have nice features, though.
 

AnalogSteph

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I actually promised myself to never to buy another MOTU product after they abandoned a MIDI patch bay that I owned by not supplying drivers for the then new Windows XP.
Did they have Windows 2000 drivers for the thing? If yes, that would have been a relatively small step indeed. The jump from Windows 95/98 to 2000 (requring a complete rewrite) was what many devices didn't survive, e.g. everything based on ESS Maestro chipsets (the chip manufacturer only ever supplied minimal, incomplete core drivers, and the soundcard makers generally didn't have the resources to do much about that). Aureal Vortex based cards were a similar case. German manufacturer Terratec had all of these in their portfolio, the ESS-based DMX alone must have gotten them numerous unhappy customers as this prosumer card had just been released in 1999. The EWS64S card (AD1816 + SAM DREAM 9407) never got NT/2000 drivers either.

There used to be loads of other teething problems as well, e.g. CS46xx based cards are not SMP compatible and will invariably cause BSODs on HT or multicore systems due to what I assume are race condition issues in the drivers. (Probably not an issue on Linux then, though they have some setup issues instead, e.g. you need to download a binary firmware blob separately for legal reasons.) VIA Envy24/HT based cards had similar issues at first but those were generally fixed in 2002/3 or so.

I think ESI is one of the very few small soundcard makers still hanging on. They probably still have a single lone driver developer.

Ah, the bad old days. We thankfully haven't had any major upheaval ever since hardware sound acceleration was ditched in Vista (to make a comeback in 8.1).
 

jonljacobi

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It’s because this interface is so tempting that I mentioned my promise. Terratec. There’s a blast from the past. I think I had one of those cards with a breakout box.
 

anphex

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Could you use this interface as a multi channel DAC für Windows PC and TV (optical) for surround sound or does this only work with direct DAW assignment?
 

AnalogSteph

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Apparently the Ultralite Mk3 could be switched to multichannel output mode, so we'll assume the Mk5 can do the same. You do realize Toslink can only carry compressed multichannel audio though, right? (In other words, AC-3 or DTS audio only, and you'd need a decoder for those that is not present in an interface like this. Kinda hard to get around an AV receiver in such an application.)
 

Biblob

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Do y'all know if the Motu M4 could also be used as a 4-channel dac? I see it has 4 outputs. If so, it would be a nice alternative for an 2.2 setup.
 

Daverz

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Do y'all know if the Motu M4 could also be used as a 4-channel dac? I see it has 4 outputs. If so, it would be a nice alternative for an 2.2 setup.

Yes, some of us are using it for 2.1 or 2.2 setups. You can also use the line inputs for analog sources. See:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...nterface-motu-m4-phenomal-dsp-streamer.24493/

Note that the volume control only controls channels 1 and 2, so you'll need some other way to control overall volume like software volume control.
 
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jonljacobi

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How odd, can't get certified class compliance for Windows. It's not exactly a small userbase there >_>
I’m not sure I’ve ever had an audio interface that worked without drivers under Windows. I certainly can’t remember one.
 

137tmxth

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I’m not sure I’ve ever had an audio interface that worked without drivers under Windows. I certainly can’t remember one.

Steinberg UR22C and UR242 definitely do (I personally know people with these), but functionality is limited compared to the proper drivers of course. There are other devices from other manufacturers which also work on some level in Windows without the proper drivers.

Without MOTU's driver, the MOTU M4 gets recognized as an USB audio device by Windows, and it seems to attempt to use usbaudio2.sys with it, but it doesn't really work, and if you go to device manager, it shows a yellow warning sign on the device and reports "Code 10". I guess M2 is similar, maybe UltraLites too.

It seems there are other manufacturers besides MOTU who officially support driverless operation on MacOS and iOS but don't on Windows. Difficult for me to say whether the hardware vendors fail at creating UAC2 compliant devices or MS fails at providing a good UAC2 driver, but perhaps someone else has done the research and knows the truth.

Btw. Windows has only had out-of-the-box support for UAC2 devices since a few years ago (Win10 v1703), while Apple has had support since 2010.
 

nagster

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I’m not sure I’ve ever had an audio interface that worked without drivers under Windows. I certainly can’t remember one.
rme adi-2dac used on Win10 works without any additional drivers. (Probably also adi-2pro)
We were able to confirm the playback of the 352kHz 24bit file and the display on the rme display. (I don't have a higher Fs file)
 

temps

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Yes, some of us are using it for 2.1 or 2.2 setups. You can also use the line inputs for analog sources. See:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...nterface-motu-m4-phenomal-dsp-streamer.24493/

Note that the volume control only controls channels 1 and 2, so you'll need some other way to control overall volume like software volume control.
when I read the manual, it looked like it was possible to assign multiple outputs to the volume control. page 35. https://cdn-data.motu.com/manuals/usb-c-audio/UltraLite-mk5_User_Guide.pdf

I am not sure if the Cuemix settings are stored in the unit, though. So it may be that once you disconnect the USB from the computer, the volume reverts to only controlling channels 1 and 2? I'm curious as to your answer. MOTU drivers are poor so I had been planning on replacing my Fireface UC with a Digiface, and using the Ultralite as an converter only.
 

mdsimon2

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when I read the manual, it looked like it was possible to assign multiple outputs to the volume control. page 35. https://cdn-data.motu.com/manuals/usb-c-audio/UltraLite-mk5_User_Guide.pdf

I am not sure if the Cuemix settings are stored in the unit, though. So it may be that once you disconnect the USB from the computer, the volume reverts to only controlling channels 1 and 2? I'm curious as to your answer. MOTU drivers are poor so I had been planning on replacing my Fireface UC with a Digiface, and using the Ultralite as an converter only.

@Daverz was clearly answering a question related to the M4.

For the Ultralite Mk5 you can select which outputs you want the volume knob to control (analog only) in Cuemix and that setting stays even when disconnected from the computer.

Michael
 
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