Why are 888/24s so damn cheap now?

[Montevideo]

I mean, can't you use those things as just stand along ad/da's?

are they that shitty???

[joel hamilton]

I think they are cheap because they have been out shined by other, better sounding options. I made records with 888's when that was the only game in town...
Let me answer a question with a question:

why are beige g3's so cheap now? Cant you get your email and surf the world wide webs with it? cant you even run a mix plus system on it?

How about a Mac 9600... man all those PCI slots sure were handy for using a graphics card and a PT mix+!

How come I cant find a good interface for my NuBus mac? I was so bummed out when I got a quadra 650 and couldnt use AMIII cards... had to get a quadra 950 for that.

anyway,

I cant believe more people are not getting these things these days. You could have a pretty awesome rig for way little money. you could even get some apogee stuff (like the 8000 series) to go with it and have a great soundig rig.

[calaverasgrandes]

I know dudes that are running 888/24s on blue and white G3's with apogee conversion(or some similarly obsolete configuration). They do just fine. Except they are stuck in an old version of Mac OS whith an old unsupported version of PT. They have pretty much 4 or 5 plugins they can use. But they do just fine. OTOH my barely 2 year old computer which was a fire breathing dragon of performance when first built is starting to really struggle with the latest greatest software I have on it. That NI stuff is a resource hog.

[JohnDavisNYC]

i was gonna be a jerk and post that yes, they do suck that bad, but then i knew that Joel was gonna have a really good explaination for their current price, as well as bringing up the very good point that lots of records have been made with 888s, and you could have a pretty banging (albeit mostly incompatible with anyone else's rig) Mix+ rig for cheap....

John

[Cojonesonasteek]

I just bought an 882 for $75 to go with the Mac 8100 I bought for the same price so I could use a Nuverb card someone gave me for free. That's a lot cheaper than $2K for a Lexicon 300.

[joel hamilton]

I actually did a record for a band called "sleepytime gorilla museum" out in san francisco, and I loaded in all the takes from a tape machine into PT 6.7 with a rig that had ONLY 888/24's. I mixed it out of my HD rig, and I like the way it sounds.
The 888's were not being clocked to anything, nor had they been modded, they were just plain old 888's.. one of them actually did not even have a cover on the top of the box, it was SOOOO bootleg.

That record reminded me that using 888's not nly is a viable thing still, but that it can be done for super cheap.
As far as compatibility goes, doing a "save session copy in" 6.0 as long as you are using 44.1 or 48k will take the length of time it takes you to hit "enter." you just uncheck "copy all audio files" and PT creates a 6.0 session icon in the same folder as your current session icon. You are now ready to plug in the drive and keep working.
this could make the most killer mobile rig ever... 3 888's for no money, a mix core card for nothing, a couple of farm cards for nothing, and a G4 desktop for nothing. WIth a small monitor that fit in the back of the 888rack when traveling or something... you would be rocking it so hard. No latency, time code implementation for sync (if it is being filmed, or you need to lock your rig to something else) and you can get the ADAT bridge for probably less than the 888's on ebay, and use ANY lightpipe compatible converter, or use AES to use any of the other converters on earth right now between those two formats.
hell I might even just get ONE 888, just so I can use a 2 channel nice interface via AES to have a portable vocal overdub rig of doom.. 1 888, 1 nice pre, 1 dbx160A... thats it!!
The desktop part of it is the only hard part, of course, as you can not run a MIX24 or + or MIX rig without PCI slots... big deal... G4s are like 28 dollars these days.
I would have pooped fire for a month if someone told me I could have a system with 96 tracks, but "only" 24 at a time IN or OUT!!!?!?!?!? wow. that is a lot of power for NO money, and it "aint an ADAT" as far as compatibility is concerned...

[Montevideo]

I cant believe more people are not getting these things these days. You could have a pretty awesome rig for way little money. you could even get some apogee stuff (like the 8000 series) to go with it and have a great soundig rig.

this is exactly the question I was asquing myself that started this whole thread. thanks for the comments.

I just went Lynx L22 with an AES expansion card and spent all my extra cash on it. the first thought when it came to converters was a 888/24.

[the finger genius]

One reason why they're so cheap now is that you can buy a digi002 for $600 giving you 8-16 channels of low latency input. This wasn't really an option back when the 888s were selling for an arm and a leg. (I think the digi001 had 8 inputs, but I don't think they offered the same low latency feature - I haven't used one, so i could be wrong here.)

I got my 002r a few years back for $700, and an Alesis AI3 last year for $200 which gives me an extra 8 inputs. And I won't have to worry about my OS or PT version becoming unsupported anytime soon.

[calaverasgrandes]

I sold my G3 AIO a year or so ago for $50. It would be ideal for that cheapo PT thing. Its basically the proto-Imac. Its big square and clunky with a semi see thru cover like the early imacs. It has 3 PCI slots and no USB or firewire!
you can get an upgrade for the USB/firewire or a pci card with it of course. There are also lots of sonnet cards to make it into a G4.
Heck the only drawback is that it weighs about 70lbs
It even has space for multiple hard drives inside. I ran PT free on it for a year or so using some event or maybe it was a lexicon sound card. I was only using it to dump dats into the machine and edit them.

[Montevideo]

One reason why they're so cheap now is that you can buy a digi002 for $600 giving you 8-16 channels of low latency input. This wasn't really an option back when the 888s were selling for an arm and a leg. (I think the digi001 had 8 inputs, but I don't think they offered the same low latency feature - I haven't used one, so i could be wrong here.)

I got my 002r a few years back for $700, and an Alesis AI3 last year for $200 which gives me an extra 8 inputs. And I won't have to worry about my OS or PT version becoming unsupported anytime soon.

makes sense. however, I'm pointing at the fact that these boxes can be used as stand alone ad/da's and looking at it from that angle they sure seem to be cheap.

[joel hamilton]

One reason why they're so cheap now is that you can buy a digi002 for $600 giving you 8-16 channels of low latency input. This wasn't really an option back when the 888s were selling for an arm and a leg. (I think the digi001 had 8 inputs, but I don't think they offered the same low latency feature - I haven't used one, so i could be wrong here.)

I got my 002r a few years back for $700, and an Alesis AI3 last year for $200 which gives me an extra 8 inputs. And I won't have to worry about my OS or PT version becoming unsupported anytime soon.

makes sense. however, I'm pointing at the fact that these boxes can be used as stand alone ad/da's and looking at it from that angle they sure seem to be cheap.

Are you SURE they can be used that Way?!? I am not sure of that. I have never heard of anyone using them with anything but PT.
ADAT's can be used as "standalone converters" but I dunno about 888's... anybody know about this? I never heard of it...

[the finger genius]

They can be used as a standalone a/d or d/a but I don't think they offer lightpipe, which kind of sucks. Also, I'm struggling to think of an application where one would really want 8 mediocre converters for 200 bucks?

Most pro-sumer boxes have mediocre converters built-in, and to add on extra inputs you usually need something with lightpipe (which the 888s don't have.) And if you're looking for better than mediocre quality, I don't think the 888s are really your best option...
There definitely could be an application out there as a stand-alone converter, but it's not coming to me. Anyone?

[Montevideo]

One reason why they're so cheap now is that you can buy a digi002 for $600 giving you 8-16 channels of low latency input. This wasn't really an option back when the 888s were selling for an arm and a leg. (I think the digi001 had 8 inputs, but I don't think they offered the same low latency feature - I haven't used one, so i could be wrong here.)

I got my 002r a few years back for $700, and an Alesis AI3 last year for $200 which gives me an extra 8 inputs. And I won't have to worry about my OS or PT version becoming unsupported anytime soon.

makes sense. however, I'm pointing at the fact that these boxes can be used as stand alone ad/da's and looking at it from that angle they sure seem to be cheap.

Are you SURE they can be used that Way?!? I am not sure of that. I have never heard of anyone using them with anything but PT.
ADAT's can be used as "standalone converters" but I dunno about 888's... anybody know about this? I never heard of it...

according to Digi you can. when you fire it up supposedly at first it goes into Stand Alone mode. if it's connected to a computer and PT for that matter once you turn on the computer it goes into basically computer or PT mode.

here's a link for the manual:
http://archive.digidesign.com/support/d ... _Guide.pdf

it's saying something about needing a clock signal to be connected to ins 1 and 2 for it to work as a d/a (nothing necessary for it to be used as a a/d).

[Montevideo]

They can be used as a standalone a/d or d/a but I don't think they offer lightpipe, which kind of sucks. Also, I'm struggling to think of an application where one would really want 8 mediocre converters for 200 bucks?

Most pro-sumer boxes have mediocre converters built-in, and to add on extra inputs you usually need something with lightpipe (which the 888s don't have.) And if you're looking for better than mediocre quality, I don't think the 888s are really your best option...
There definitely could be an application out there as a stand-alone converter, but it's not coming to me. Anyone?

so, you're saying that you prefer the converters on your 002r over the ones on a 888/24?

[the finger genius]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Or at least I'm saying that I wouldn't prefer the converters from an 888/24 over my 002r. If I was going to spend cash on an upgrade, I'd see the folks at Black Lion Audio before considering the 888s.