[Mike Rivers]

Since I have all of these things that I need, I don't keep very close
tabs on what's available and how they sound. So I need some experience here.

The project - to digitize a zillion tapes. No, I'm not doing it, someone
else is (hee, hee, hee) and he's gathering equipment. He'll probably get
paid, so it's OK. He has a Nakamichi Dragon for the cassettes and an
Otari MX-5050 for the reel-to-reel tapes, so he's OK there.

He would prefer to use a Mac for his working computer, and I don't have
any Mac experience (and he doesn't have a lot of hair left) so we're
trying to find something that will work straight off without having to
wait for "the next driver" to get it to work click-free. Since his Mac
doesn't have a PCI slot, he's looking for a Firewire or USB connection
to the computer. His budget is $350 (from the organization he's doing
the job for) but that can be stretched if it makes sense.

Requirements (this is ultimately going to the LIbrary of Congress) are
for 24-bit 96 kHz - just about everything does that. Copying, once a
reel is loaded, level set, and started playing, will be pretty much
unattended. The tapes span about 40 years, recorded by several different
people on several different machines. Quality is random, but he won't be
doing anything to clean them up, just making digital archive-ready
copies. He will be learning how to deal with all the associated problems
with tape so don't waste your time telling me/him about head alignment
and sticky shed if you don't have an interface to recommend.

I'm thinking that something with better than garden variety noise
performance would be an advantage so he can be safely conservative with
record level. I was a bit surprised to find that useful specs for line
inputs were conspicuous by their absence (or nonsense) on a number of
interfaces that I looked at. It would be nice if the line inputs had
enough input headroom (or padding ahead of the first active stage) so
that he can use the full output level from the Otari tape deck, which
would allow him to get full use of its VU meters. But it also needs
enough gain on the line inputs to record from the Nakamichi Dragon which
I assume, since it's a consumer deck, has the typical -10 dBV unbalanced
outputs. Mic preamps, I guess, are unavoidable, but are of no consequence.

My first suggestion, based on the manufacturer's reputation and the fact
that it's Mac-only so it's bound to work out of the box, was the Apogee
Duet, but as far as I can tell, the not-mic inputs are high impedance
for instrument pickups, which makes me a bit suspicious. What I'm
leaning toward now is the M-Audio ProFire 610 if he can get an extra $50
to spend, or PreSonus Firebox if he can't, and in a pinch, a TASCAM
US-122L. The M-Audio, at least on paper, looks like it has nearly 10 dB
less quiescent noise. Sort of in-the-running is the Edirol FA-66, but
I've read some (not necessarily qualified) poor on-line reports about
its Mac compatibility and noise level.

Any thoughts, preferably based on personal experience? Maybe the newer
t.c. or Focusrite stuff? I'd love to see him get into an RME Fireface
400 or Metric Halo ULN-2 but they're too far off budget.






--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)