State-of-the-art audio interfaces

[Bamboszek]

Lately I started looking at state of the art audio interfaces market. I'm especially interested at two or four channel devices.
Currently I'm using rather basic and cheap Audient iD4. Apart from only one mic preamp and recent issues connected with USB power at my motherboard it is solid piece of hardware. Because of that external power supply is highly preferred so USB power dropouts and freezes would be avoided.
Someday I want to upgrade to near field monitors such as Neumanns or Genelecs so currently I'm looking for worthy interface companion
Mainly used for playback. Apart from that sometimes interface gonna be used for DAW recording and maybe for measurements in pair with Autoranger.

Based at these three main goals I've chosen a few applicable options.
1. Reliable and future proof
2. Stable drivers with low latency
3. Reasonable analog performance of at least 100dB SINAD at both A/D and D/A

(Link to spreadsheet)
Note that specifications come from manufacturers manuals. I consider them as serious companies and believe they are more or less accurate.

RME was my first idea. Company support longevity and their driver stability is almost legendary. Analog performance is decent but not best. I don't really like that form factor but this is smaller issue. Basic DSP such as channel routing.
Antelope and Universal Audio both are highly regarded at professional market and offers advanced DSP effects such as emulation of guitar amplifiers or console preamps.
Twin X looks almost perfect but can be connected to PC only with TB3. This means no AMD based PCs - only Intel with expensive TB3 equipped motherboard. A bit expensive side.
MOTU M4 offers excellent analog performance, especially considering it's price. Unfortunately there are some reports that drivers are unstable and there is no external power supply. Focusrite Clarett 2Pre USB and MOTU UltraLite mk4 are other options but I'm not sure about drivers too.

Apogee Duet specs looks very good but IMHO breakout cable is unacceptable in terms of ergonomics and reliability.
There is also Prism Sound Lyra 1 (yeah, same Prism Sound which manufactures audio analyzers) which is ridiculously expensive.
Any other ideas or suggestions?

 

[q3cpma]

You forget an important point in your remarks: the Babyface only needs USB power and it has a cool LED level thing.

 

[Eurasian]

I have had a great experience with my Babyface Pro, so can strongly recommend this if it has the I/O you want/need.

 

[JohnYang1997]

I don't recommend antelope. And I don't recommend UA for non mac users. RME is solid on Windows. Also as for focusrite and motu if 100db is indeed all you need.

 

[Blumlein 88]

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/motu-624-audio-interface-review.9824/
MOTU 624
Better performance than the Babyface as measured by Amir, more connections and less money. RME wins on long term driver support.

Here is the Babyface review by Amir.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...yface-pro-fs-portable-interface-review.12313/


I have an Antelope Audio Zen Tour which I'm pretty happy with. Lots of DSP emulations and other good stuff. It is more expensive than those you list. But 2nd hand ones are available after people get tired of the sometimes broken software upgrades Antelope is infamous for. It is USB 2.0 and TB2. I must say the ZT has had no software hiccups in the past 18 months, but I still rather don't like being always tethered to the Antelope mother ship every time I start the device up. I do really like how easy the device is to use however or I wouldn't keep it. I'd think twice about another Antelope purchase due to the infamous upgraded software problems.

You might check out the Apogee Element series. Mac only. I've been very tempted by them.
https://apogeedigital.com/products/element

 

[bennetng]

(Link to spreadsheet)

At least two of the "poor drivers" ones are using XMOS chips:
https://prosound.ixbt.com/interfaces/focusrite-clarett.shtml
https://prosound.ixbt.com/interfaces/motu-m4.shtml

So manufacturers of these products don't have full control over what the drivers and firmwares do. More info:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/showpost.php?p=14004379&postcount=531

 

[Bamboszek]

Thanks everyone for your answers.
Whats wrong with UA at Windows?
The problem is that vast majority of USB interfaces uses XMOS and Thesycon drivers
I'm using PC and it is hard to get Thunderbolt at non-Mac computers. Especially when I'm considering upgrading to AMD Ryzen soon, only few motherboards supports TB.
That gearslutz thread is very helpful.

 

[boXem]

At least two of the "poor drivers" ones are using XMOS chips:
https://prosound.ixbt.com/interfaces/focusrite-clarett.shtml
https://prosound.ixbt.com/interfaces/motu-m4.shtml

So manufacturers of these products don't have full control over what the drivers and firmwares do. More info:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/showpost.php?p=14004379&postcount=531

Sorry, not getting the logic xmos = no control over firmware and drivers. Care to elaborate?

 

[bennetng]

Sorry, not getting the logic xmos = no control over firmware and drivers. Care to elaborate?

https://www.dawbench.com/audio-int-lowlatency2.htm

With the current shift for many manufacturers away from FW, most of the current crop of USB 2 interfaces apart from RME also share an identical OEM controller from XMOS , base drivers are provided by numerous 3rd parties, CENtrance, Ploytec, Thesycon, and in short, its an absolute crap shoot.

Which means they are using someone else's controller (e.g. XMOS) rather than developing the controllers themselves (e.g. RME, Lynx, the old Creative/EMU ones and so on).

 

[boXem]

https://www.dawbench.com/audio-int-lowlatency2.htm

Which means they are using someone else's controller (e.g. XMOS) rather than developing the controllers themselves (e.g. RME, Lynx, the old Creative/EMU ones and so on).

Nobody has it's own controller. A controller is hardware stuff, the only companies I have in mind developing their own controllers are Apple and Samsung. And you will notice that this is not for audio stuff. Several XMOS controllers are dedicated to usb audio and seem to be quite capable for this.

The "issue" with XMOS is the availability of of the shelf firmware and drivers, making it a very tempting solution when you want to do a lot of savings on development. So there is a good chance that when there is an XMOS controller, there is of the shelf fw inside and it's using if the shelf drivers.
I could get that these standardized solutions are not optimal for pro audio. Doesn't mean that XMOS is crap.

 

[Rizzle]

Asus has a cheapish motherboard with a TB3 controller. You need to buy the expansion card, but its not an extremely expensive option. However, I do wonder about driver stability, so by that logic Antelope (DSP) and RME (drivers) have my preference.

 

[Pluto]

https://www.dawbench.com

I would be a little skeptical of the findings of a website, however good its scientific method, whose references to Windows performance are based on results achieved under Windows 7. It must be said that Thesycon's work seems to have changed out of all recognition since that website was last updated.

 

[bennetng]

Nobody has it's own controller. A controller is hardware stuff, the only companies I have in mind developing their own controllers are Apple and Samsung. And you will notice that this is not for audio stuff. Several XMOS controllers are dedicated to usb audio and seem to be quite capable for this.

The "issue" with XMOS is the availability of of the shelf firmware and drivers, making it a very tempting solution when you want to do a lot of savings on development. So there is a good chance that when there is an XMOS controller, there is of the shelf fw inside and it's using if the shelf drivers.
I could get that these standardized solutions are not optimal for pro audio. Doesn't mean that XMOS is crap.

I didn't say XMOS is crap if you read my original posts and it's completely fine if you don't encounter any issue (while others may). By saying developing their own controller I mean either use FPGA from companies like Xilinx, or making their own chip, for example Creative/EMU have [EDIT: updated link] their own controller chips. Of course this approach can also cause other issues but in this case the interfaces' manufacturers are to blame, instead of the developers from third party solutions.

 

[bennetng]

https://www.dawbench.com

I would be a little skeptical of the findings of a website, however good its scientific method, whose references to Windows performance are based on results achieved under Windows 7. It must be said that Thesycon's work seems to have changed out of all recognition since that website was last updated.

The website itself is mostly dead. Here is a big thread with newer interfaces and test results.
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mus...ce-low-latency-performance-data-base-108.html

 

[Pluto]

Trouble with that board is that they are just total bitches to, and about, each other, ceaselessly.

Talk about a room jammed-up with keyboard warriors!

 

[bennetng]

Trouble with that board is that they are just total bitches to, and about, each other, ceaselessly.

Talk about a room jammed-up with keyboard warriors!

Such things happen on all forums to a certain extent. Just extract the useful information.

 

[Pluto]

Just extract the useful information

That's a bit like eating fish containing tetrodotoxin; I'd rather not try it.

 

[Matias]

If only the RME ADI-2 Pro had mic preamps on these inputs....

 

[Merty_merty1]

Hello, long time avid reader of ASR forums but newly registered forum member here making my first post.

I do home recording and music production and was looking to upgrade my audio interface so this post in particular was of great interest to me. I just want to share the information that the UAD Apollo Twin X will work for some AMD mobos as there are quite a few X570 (and maybe b550) thunderbolt port pcie expansion cards available. Not sure how reliable and stable the drivers are.

Also, I would like to inquire about the upcoming Apogee Symphony Desktop audio interface which seems to be compatible with windows through USB C and uses the revered conversion of the Apogee Symphony product lineup. It also comes with 2 new "alloy preamps" which seem to use some kind of preamp emulation similar to UAD Unison. It seems like it isn't necessarily the best value proposition but it may be absolute top of the line and state of the art in terms of performance in the desktop interface category.

Any ideas or further information on this product? Supposedly it is being released this month. Also, any thoughts on the Apogee windows drivers?

Thanks!

https://apogeedigital.com/products/symphony-desktop

 

[digitalfrost]

If you get the RME Digiface, you can use any external DAC you like, given it has optical inputs.