New Toy - Motu 8A

[Blumlein 88]

Buying digital these days...

First figure out what kind of feature set you want.

DAC only?
DAC with analog (for use as a preamp)?
DAC with WiFi and Bluetooth and Ethernet and Hard Drives and Everything Else Under the Sun?

What do you need?

What do you think you need?

I agree, but what I have seen from others jumping into digital all at once is they don't know which of these they want. DAC preamps are threatening to become like AVRs. Supporting every gimmick and format under the sun in the history of the industry. Making them complex as all get out to operate while you only likely care about a couple features and one or two formats.

 

[Purité Audio]

Buy a DAC which is inside the loudspeaker as part of its DSP, if you want to hear a real improvement in sound quality.
Keith

 

[Thomas savage]

Buy a DAC which is inside the loudspeaker as part of its DSP, if you want to hear a real improvement in sound quality.
Keith

Why dose that improve sound quality over external dac ?

 

[dallasjustice]

Some other great pro DAC/ADCs I've owned include Lynx Hilo and Prism Sound Titan. The Titan is a joy to use. The Lynx isn't as fun to use because it's mixer takes some real learning because routing in/out is so flexible. It's hard to say one sounds better than the other. And the Merging NADAC looks great and sounds great but I would never say I know I can consistently hear an improvement compared to the other pro units.

I love Merging Hapi but I think there may still be limitations to their AES67 ASIO. I know it won't do multi-client. This would be a problem if you were to use REW to record logsweeps through Jriver ASIO line in.

I've always had the impression the Antelope pro gear is overrated. I would never buy it.

 

[The Smokester]

Some other great pro DAC/ADCs I've owned include...Prism Sound Titan...

Is the quality of the Prism Sound Lyra 2 same as the Titan 2 except for reduced functionality?

 

[March Audio]

A naive question here: Your measurements of this DAC appear that this is more than adequate...Perhaps perfect within the limits of human hearing? Why would this unit sound any different from another similarly-characterized DAC?

I'm asking cause I'm replacing a great ($30k+) analog front end with digital... maybe I don't need to spend $20k on a Berkeley front end?

I dont think its a naive question, very pertinent in fact.

As I have alluded to previously imo the capabilities of DACs are not so disparate. A great many use the same ESS chips, so as long as they are competently designed with transparent output amplification, why why would they sound radically different? Unless of course deliberately so.........

I find many dacs do sound very subtly different, but not necessarily explicitly better or worse than each other. The are few companies making kit that deviates from the major chipsets. Chord do, I have a Mojo and like its sligjtly different tonality and top end, but I dont think I can hear things with it that arent there on other dacs.

I certainly wouldnt spend 20k on a dac. Thats just as much a status symbol as it is a piece of audio equipment. IMO its audio performance improvement (if any at all) wont be
commensurate with the price.

My opinion is that there are much better ways to spend that money, ie speakers and room acoustics. Also that the way forward is active speakers with DSP crossovers and correction. It solves so many problems over traditional "seperates" configurations.

 

[Purité Audio]

Why dose that improve sound quality over external dac ?

The DAC/DACs ( Kii's have 12 ) become part of the DSP chain, correcting overall phase, driver anomalies, in the Kii's case controlled directivity, DSP crossovers etc etc.
Keith

 

[dallasjustice]

Is the quality of the Prism Sound Lyra 2 same as the Titan 2 except for reduced functionality?

Yes.

 

[March Audio]

Ooooh, more new toys ! Looks like I have access to a large chunk of the Keysight inventory. Just checking the MCLK jitter on my (faulty) minidsp board.

 

[RayDunzl]

All this makes me wonder if I should simply start avoiding consumer "hifi" products and stick to no bullshit professional..........

Since "no bullshit professional" gear is generally involved in entertainment production, I'm not thinking of a good reason to avoid it, as long as the specification, function, and execution meet your criteria.

Mix and match to fill your needs. I seem to.

My panel speakers aren't pro, but I don't need to pound a bunch of drunken dancers in a club. Nevertheless, they'll play unbearably loudly in this room.

Oh wait, my little JBLs are "pro"...

My subs aren't pro or audiophile at all. With a little external DSP applied they're giving pretty good service. Bought for experimentation, maybe not even needed here.

My main amps amd preamp aren't pro, but I used a PA amp at home in the past. ABSystems 1200b "King of the Jungle". It's still in the garage. My little Krells are more powerful, and I would daresay more refined, though they'd probably burn up if I let the band use them.

My DAC comes from a manufacturer of "pro" digital, that's stumbled into a new source of customers in home audio.

My DEQ2496 is sold for "pro" use. It even says "pro" all over it.

My miniDSP is is neither pro nor audiophile, just an adequate bit wrangler.

My HDRadio tuner is liquidation surplus ($50) originally from a RadioShack somewhere. Neither audiophile nor pro. Its chip is the receiver side of the Ibiquity (pro) transmission gear. There's not much to it. I use the digital output.

My CD player (just used as a cheap digital transport) is a Tascam, which has its share of rack-mount goodies and was purchased from a "pro" store. I haven't even taken the rack-ears off of it yet. Oh look, the top of the webpage says "Tascam - Teac Professional"


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Ooooh, more new toys

Ooooh...

 

[March Audio]

There are of course perfectly good and technically competent domestic hifi products. I just am getting increasingly bored of the bullshit and ignorance that accompanies the domestic hifi scene.

 

[DonH56]

Sooo jealous of BE718... Too much fun with too many toys! Technically I could haul one of our Tek 'scopes home but I hate to bring home something worth as much as my home...

 

[March Audio]

Havent taken a look at the RF spectrum analysers yet. Could be interesting to investigate the alleged RF problems on the mains that so many audiophiles are hoping their funky mains cables will remove. Not that I mean that RF problems on mains don't exist, but their affect on HiFi (and the efficacy of the audiophool solutions) needs to be investigated.

Now, as I mentioned previously, I have made a loopback recording using the Motu. Below are links to the original track, it re-recorded and an additional one of my Chord Mojo playing into the Motu.

Compare and see what you think.

Original
http://gofile.me/6r8Us/FKsS03G9K

Motu Loopback
http://gofile.me/6r8Us/1LtAB8eGw

Mojo to Motu
http://gofile.me/6r8Us/FVvJeTpKZ

 

[voodooless]

@March Audio how usable is the Motu mixer itself as a platform for a DSP crossover? It obviously does not have any FIR filtering, but it does have EQ, filters, compressors and more. Question is: could it comfortably be used as a crossover? My main issue would be the limited amount of EQ's per mixer channel. I'm not sure if there are ways to circumvent this?

 

[March Audio]

@March Audio how usable is the Motu mixer itself as a platform for a DSP crossover? It obviously does not have any FIR filtering, but it does have EQ, filters, compressors and more. Question is: could it comfortably be used as a crossover? My main issue would be the limited amount of EQ's per mixer channel. I'm not sure if there are ways to circumvent this?

Its not really sophisticated enough for that. Basic filtering but not really good enough for XO

 

[voodooless]

Its not really sophisticated enough for that. Basic filtering but not really good enough for XO

What are the main things that are missing? Is there really a 4 EQ limit per channel? No custom bi-quad's obviously.

 

[Deleted member 4708]

Got the same toy. I store my headphone's EQs on it; using it mainly for (equalization of) my STAX SR-009. The interface is very intuitive - I like it. I also like the stout look of it - pro tool indeed; no nonsense.