(MOTU or Audient) Audio Interface Dilemma

[It_Is_Me]

Hi,

Right now, I'm super confused as to which audio interface to buy. I currently have an Arturia Minifuse 2 but I need to upgrade it to something with more inputs and that can be plugged to an outlet. Also, it's been more than 6 months now that whenever I watch youtube or any other content on chrome, i hear crackling (I'm planning on buying the Behringer HD400 Hum Destroyer to see if it'll solve it). I'm having in consideration the following products:

- MOTU M6 - Pros: low latency, low headphone output impedance, MIDI in and out, 4 Mic/ Line/ Instrument inputs, clear input and output metering.
Cons: possible unreliable windows drivers (?), not very good software app.
- Audient iD44 MKII - Pros: amazing software app and programmable buttons (with useful functions), good mic preamps, ADAT in and out.
Cons: high headphone output impedance, only output metering, no MIDI in and out.

These are things that stand out in each of them. Both these interfaces come with loopback, can be plugged to an outlet, individual 48V button and possess two independently controllable headphone inputs.
I've been battling with this for weeks now and I can't seem to decide. Also, please feel free to recommend interfaces other than these. I arrived on these two based on my research which included a lot of forums and some hours of Julian Krause's videos (I might be bad at researching, I don't know ). Budget-wise, from these choices, I think you can see it clearly.

I have a Windows 11 PC, use a pair of Audio Technica ATH M50Xs and a pair of Adam T5Vs (Amir's review on this forum helped my decision a lot with these monitors).

I would very much appreciate all the help I can get in making this decision. Thank you in advance!

 

[AnalogSteph]

Also, it's been more than 6 months now that whenever I watch youtube or any other content on chrome, i hear crackling (I'm planning on buying the Behringer HD400 Hum Destroyer to see if it'll solve it).

Just on Chrome? I sort of doubt that the HD400 can do much about that then. I would install LatencyMon and watch DPC latency this way, and update the graphics drivers (especially if you are running Intel UHD Graphics 770, where an annoying driver bug was fixed quite recently).

Can't really help you with the rest, except that the M50x seems to have a near ruler-flat impedance response, so would be basically unbothered by almost any amount of output impedance.

 

[Sombreuil]

Something that might help choosing between the two is that I'd avoid MOTU on PC, especially on AMD hardware.
I've seen too many people struggling with MOTU on PC to recommend it. On MAC, great, on PC, it's hit or miss.

 

[It_Is_Me]

Just on Chrome? I sort of doubt that the HD400 can do much about that then. I would install LatencyMon and watch DPC latency this way, and update the graphics drivers (especially if you are running Intel UHD Graphics 770, where an annoying driver bug was fixed quite recently).

Can't really help you with the rest, except that the M50x seems to have a near ruler-flat impedance response, so would be basically unbothered by almost any amount of output impedance.

Thank you for taking the time. Yeah, I only notice in Chrome. Oh, okay, don't know what LatencyMon is but I'll give it a try for sure. I use an Nvidia Geforce RTX 3080 TI and update its drivers regularly.

Is it really okay to ignore the output impedance in this case? From what I've found and based on Julian Krause's review of the Audient iD44 MKII, he himself didn't recomend the use of headphones with less than 80 Ohms. I also remember hearing him say that the recommended heaphone impedance is that of 8 times the output one.

 

[It_Is_Me]

Something that might help choosing between the two is that I'd avoid MOTU on PC, especially on AMD hardware.
I've seen too many people struggling with MOTU on PC to recommend it. On MAC, great, on PC, it's hit or miss.

Thank you for the response. I get that. From what I understand MOTU is a company that started Mac-only and the slowly became compatible with windows. I've also seen a number of people complaining about the drivers in Windows and that was exactly what I feared because if it wasn't for the problems I've seen regarding the drivers, I'd have already made my choice. What a shame. By the way, I use Intel Core i9 12900k.

 

[studio7]

Hi,

Right now, I'm super confused as to which audio interface to buy. I currently have an Arturia Minifuse 2 but I need to upgrade it to something with more inputs and that can be plugged to an outlet. Also, it's been more than 6 months now that whenever I watch youtube or any other content on chrome, i hear crackling (I'm planning on buying the Behringer HD400 Hum Destroyer to see if it'll solve it). I'm having in consideration the following products:

- MOTU M6 - Pros: low latency, low headphone output impedance, MIDI in and out, 4 Mic/ Line/ Instrument inputs, clear input and output metering.
Cons: possible unreliable windows drivers (?), not very good software app.
- Audient iD44 MKII - Pros: amazing software app and programmable buttons (with useful functions), good mic preamps, ADAT in and out.
Cons: high headphone output impedance, only output metering, no MIDI in and out.

These are things that stand out in each of them. Both these interfaces come with loopback, can be plugged to an outlet, individual 48V button and possess two independently controllable headphone inputs.
I've been battling with this for weeks now and I can't seem to decide. Also, please feel free to recommend interfaces other than these. I arrived on these two based on my research which included a lot of forums and some hours of Julian Krause's videos (I might be bad at researching, I don't know ). Budget-wise, from these choices, I think you can see it clearly.

I have a Windows 11 PC, use a pair of Audio Technica ATH M50Xs and a pair of Adam T5Vs (Amir's review on this forum helped my decision a lot with these monitors).

I would very much appreciate all the help I can get in making this decision. Thank you in advance!

About the crackling, try this - go into Chrome's settings / System / disable "Use hardware acceleration when available". Restart the browser.

Can't give any opinion on the MOTU, but my Audient runs smoothly on a 11th gen Intel PC. No dropouts even at 2ms latency.

 

[AnalogSteph]

I use an Nvidia Geforce RTX 3080 TI and update its drivers regularly.

In that case I would also have a look at its properties in Device Manager and check what kind of IRQ it uses (Resources tab). It should be a low negative number, indicating MSI mode. There is a utility named "MSI tool" to switch this around if it's still in line-based interrupt mode.

Is it really okay to ignore the output impedance in this case?

With the min/max values of 37/39 ohms given on the page I linked to, you would never get a FR deviation exceeding about 0.46 dB no matter the output impedance, which is close to inaudible even in a direct comparison. (You can do the calculation yourself.) So it's almost like having planars or something.

 

[It_Is_Me]

About the crackling, try this - go into Chrome's settings / System / disable "Use hardware acceleration when available". Restart the browser.

Can't give any opinion on the MOTU, but my Audient runs smoothly on a 11th gen Intel PC. No dropouts even at 2ms latency.

Hi. I've already disabled that setting a few months ago.

Nice, glad to know that, thank you very much.

 

[It_Is_Me]

In that case I would also have a look at its properties in Device Manager and check what kind of IRQ it uses (Resources tab). It should be a low negative number, indicating MSI mode. There is a utility named "MSI tool" to switch this around if it's still in line-based interrupt mode.


With the min/max values of 37/39 ohms given on the page I linked to, you would never get a FR deviation exceeding about 0.46 dB no matter the output impedance, which is close to inaudible even in a direct comparison. (You can do the calculation yourself.) So it's almost like having planars or something.

So, the IRQ is that of the image. I don't know what it means but it does have a negative number (-24). That means it's in line-based interrupt mode (so do I need to change it?). Also, I'm having trouble trying to find MSI utility download.

Oh, okay. So does that mean it's still gonna sound true and faithful and I don't need to worry too much about headphone output impedance?

 

[AnalogSteph]

So, the IRQ is that of the image. I don't know what it means but it does have a negative number (-24). That means it's in line-based interrupt mode (so do I need to change it?).

Should be fine then. You could still try limiting the PCIe interface to gen3 speeds (should be somewhere in BIOS setup; some mfrs have a manual for that so I hope you'll find the option).

Oh, okay. So does that mean it's still gonna sound true and faithful and I don't need to worry too much about headphone output impedance?

Exactly. At least as "true and faithful" as you can expect from the M50x, anyway.

 

[dasdoing]

Something that might help choosing between the two is that I'd avoid MOTU on PC, especially on AMD hardware.
I've seen too many people struggling with MOTU on PC to recommend it. On MAC, great, on PC, it's hit or miss.

they say that the newer generation win drivers don't have these problems anymore.
also, as a user of an older genration Motu (Traveler MK3), the bugs are minor and don't really bother. sometimes I turn on my monitors and the device will disconnect from Windows. just turning it on and off solves it.
I think the problem of that generation was that they had one driver for all devices. the new devices seam to have individual drivers

 

[studio7]

By the way, I use Intel Core i9 12900k.

It turns out that starting with 12th gen Intel have made some changes in the processor architecture, which leads to highly increased DPC latency. To get crackling free audio you'll need to use much bigger audio buffer sizes.