New macbook... apogee duet or echo audiofire 4?

[schaf]

Hey guys,

I need a basic interface for my new macbook. I do everything at home, lots of analog synth and bass guitar run direct through a tube pre, with some vinyl/found sound sampling and the occasional miced acoustic instrument. Right now I'm using an m-audio omni studio and I think the sound quality is fine, for my purposes. Sometimes I wonder how much better it might sound with a better interface/converters, though.

Right now I'm leaning towards the echo audiofire 4. For my purposes it looks like a good choice - i like the fact that it has an extra two ins so i can keep my record player hooked up for sampling. Also two extra outputs could be nice in a live situation if i ever wanted to have a cue output, or in the studio if I ever have a sudden urge to use a guitar pedal as an outboard effect. The built in MIDI ports would also be valued for control of the synth.

And then there's the apogee duet...an extra couple hundred gets me a sexier industrial design and (way?) nicer pres and converters, but I lose the extra ins and outs and MIDI ports. How much better is this going to make my shit sound? If it's a huge sound quality difference I can deal with the higher price and fewer channels, but it seems hard to believe that converters are going to make that big a difference for me...keep in mind I already have a good tube pre/DI that I like. I realize I can buy a MIDI box for cheap...but the clutter of yet another small box alongside the interface and midi/CV converter (not to mention the extra cables) would tend to cancel out the aesthetic virtues of the duet's industrial design...

Please advise!

[vsr600]

does your new macbook have a firewire port even?
If so check out the RME fireface stuff (400 and 800), excellent quality for a decent price. If that's not in your budget the Echo Audiofire's are also pretty awesome for the money. Not a huge fan of the apogee interfaces... their high end converters are awesome but the dongle and the lack of controls on the Duet is not worth the extra money in my opinion.

[schaf]

does your new macbook have a firewire port even?

Yes, it is the previous gen macbook with firewire.

The RME fireface does look really sweet but it's probably overkill for what I need and definitely more than I want to spend.

I didn't even realize there's a dongle involved with the duet. That's kinda lame.

[palinilap]

does your new macbook have a firewire port even?
If so check out the RME fireface stuff (400 and 800), excellent quality for a decent price. If that's not in your budget the Echo Audiofire's are also pretty awesome for the money. Not a huge fan of the apogee interfaces... their high end converters are awesome but the dongle and the lack of controls on the Duet is not worth the extra money in my opinion.

Unless Apogee changed something up recently, there's no dongle involved. It comes with a breakout cable for ins and outs, but no dongle.

[timmymacdd]

no volume knob on the echo.

I would go with a presonus firestudio from craigslist. 300 cash or less and no tax.......


What you really need when buying a audio interface with a computer is the DIRECT MONITORING. Also to make your life worth living while using it you need a button on the outside.......one for the headphones-one for the moniotors, one for trim, and one for the direct monitoring. The more the merrier. THere is a big difference in the voluime control to your headphones and the direct monitoring volume so I wouldn't even think of getting a soundcard without a DM volume slider.

Presonus have awsome pre-amps.....also they are all over craigslist for 250 bucks.....I would say ebay but I like to get my shit the day I get the cash. Plus a guy selling for 300 will take as low as 200 bucks cash delivered right to his house to a cool musician type. IMHO as you can see I am cheap.....I usually have 150 bucks set aside at most......but I make it stretch to 250 in order to not get a device that is insufficient, And in soundcards there is a GIGANTIC DIFEERENCE between ones that are good and ones that are not. ALL of the boxes claim that they are awsome...can't trust advertising....especially the box cover...or website.

True they will all sound the same......as far as 24bit/96,000sample rate......and give or take the DI and pre-amps will be within the same range......and they all have midi. But it is the controls on the outside that really make them work great......I notice when I have other singers or guitar guys over that if there is a knob for them on the box then I don't have to stand there and ask if the volume of their tracking headphones is good or not because they can adjust it themselves. Even with the presonus you can get multiple headphone outs.....

The complaint that the echo doesn't have loud enough headphone volume settles it for me.


that box that you had picked out doesn't seem to have the functions that I use on a very steady basis. ANd the apogee is a ripoff but looks really cool.

[;ivlunsdystf]

Just a quick shout-out for the tc electronics konnekt (I have the 24d). I can barely hear the difference between any converters, I admit, but even my weary ears detect that the tc converters sound better than any Tascam converters I ever got used to previously. There are plenty of useful knobs on the outside too, as per that other guy's post. The mic preamps are thready and I only use them when I need more than 2 channels (I have 2 outboard pres)

We did the apogee vs. echo converters comparison here about a month ago (search for "audiofire" and you will find the thread) and although no discussion like this can ever be totally conclusive there were plenty of people who were very happy with the echo converters.

[rabbitw]

that's funny that someone said the audiofire headphone volume is too low. i have the audiofire4 and i think it's really loud (headphone output). i never have the volume knob past 9 o'clock, and all of my friends think i'm deaf from playing in bands for too long, so i don't know.. i like my audiofire4 pretty well and am planning on moving up to the 12 when i get more money saved. and maybe i'll sell the 4 if you're interested, but that may be a while.

[vsr600]

does your new macbook have a firewire port even?
If so check out the RME fireface stuff (400 and 800), excellent quality for a decent price. If that's not in your budget the Echo Audiofire's are also pretty awesome for the money. Not a huge fan of the apogee interfaces... their high end converters are awesome but the dongle and the lack of controls on the Duet is not worth the extra money in my opinion.

Unless Apogee changed something up recently, there's no dongle involved. It comes with a breakout cable for ins and outs, but no dongle.

ah yea that's what i meant... sorry for some reason I was thinking the breakout cable was called a dongle...

[allyouneedisears]

The duet is an excellent unit... and it has controls, very intuitive controls. Some of the best converters around, and nice clean pres as well. I would stay far away from any presonus units... I'm talking 49 and a half foot pole.

[rwc]

I have to wonder how something powered off of USB can be considered so great that it is worthy of the statement to stay away from presonus with a pole.

Not that presonus is amazing, but does the word apogee mean that much?

[allyouneedisears]

I have to wonder how something powered off of USB can be considered so great that it is worthy of the statement to stay away from presonus with a pole.

Not that presonus is amazing, but does the word apogee mean that much?

..it's not usb powered, as it's a firewire unit. It's has nothing to do with the word, but the sound. Having owned both, honestly, the difference was mind blowing. Like taking a giant sopping wet blanket off of your speakers.

[;ivlunsdystf]

I have to wonder how something powered off of USB can be considered so great that it is worthy of the statement to stay away from presonus with a pole.

Not that presonus is amazing, but does the word apogee mean that much?

..it's not usb powered, as it's a firewire unit. It's has nothing to do with the word, but the sound. Having owned both, honestly, the difference was mind blowing. Like taking a giant sopping wet blanket off of your speakers.

The jump from Presonus to Apogee, like the jump from Tascam to Apogee, seems to be pretty major in most anecdotal reports around here. The jump from Echo to Apogee seems to be not such a major improvement in the same sorts of reports.

[Jeff White]

I've been using the Duet since it came out last Fall. I wanted a great little unit for overdub remote recording, for really nice D/A with a desktop volume, etc. It has not disappointed me in the least. I use it daily and it is rock solid and sounds really great.

I also have a Black Lion modified MOTU 828mk2. It sounds great like the Apogee Duet. Slightly different. I use that when I need to track more than two things at once (drums). I have not tracked full bands in a few years because most of my work lately has been for post film audio, overdub sessions for records, and mixing. I haven't used the BLA MOTU since January, to be honest.

The Duet is really great if all you need is two inputs at a time, and if you are going to work with headphones and mains separately.

Presonus... some of their mic preamps are really great. I have owned an MP20 with Burr-Browns since 2003 and I use it a lot. Sounds great, and they can be had for under $300 these days.

Jeff

[Barlines]

I'm trying to decide between the Apogee Duet and the Echo Audiofire 8 (hey, maybe I'll need the extra inputs and outputs later).

Before I heard about the Echo units, I decided on the Duet. Then I found out about the Audiofire units, so I decided that it was a way better deal. AND THEN I read in a review of the Echo units that they have an absurdly loud noise on the outputs (inputs as well?) around 25 kHz. Now, I definitely can not even hear up to 25 kHz, let alone 20 kHz, but is this a problem for anybody? Is this still a problem with the Audiofire?

I've recently found out that Ableton Live's stretching and transposing is way better at the 2x sample rates (probably the summing and plugins as well), otherwise I would just use 44.1 kHz and be done with this indecision brick inside my head.

Here is the Sound on Sound review of the Audiofire 12 that mentions the ultrasonic noise.

[Jeff White]

If you record by overdubbing, the Duet is just awesome. Again, I have another interface for when I need to record 10 channels of audio. However, honestly, for what I've been doing in the past year I can cover a lot of ground with just the Duet.

And it sounds really really good. And isn't that the most important thing?

Regarding MIDI, I just use my M-Audio controllers' MIDI i/o to get by if I am using the Duet.

Jeff