What's the deal with the MOTU 896HD?

[jeffontheleft]

I've had this interface for a while and didn't have any complaints
until I added an Allen & Heath Mix Wizard to my recording chain. The
pre's on the Mix Wiz sound great; when I monitor the mixer output I'm
very pleased. However that same signal outputted through the MOTU
sounds like crap! There's hardly any depth or warmth or anything,
basically it sounds like somewhere in the MOTU the signal gets
neutered and shoved up to the very front. Simply put, everything
sounds 2-dimensional. Is this an issue of headroom? Am I wrong to
blame the MOTU's pre's for this? If not, what 8 channel interface
would you recommend I get instead?

[jeffontheleft]

....I think I left out a few critical details:

The MOTU input is line level.
I'm monitoring via Cubase SX which is set to 16 bits @ 44.1 kHz. I
realize in retrospect that this should be raised. I won't be able to
test these changes until the weekend, in the meantime can you think of
anything else I might try changing?

[Arny Krueger]

"jeffontheleft" > wrote in message
oups.com

> I've had this interface for a while and didn't have any
> complaints until I added an Allen & Heath Mix Wizard to
> my recording chain. The pre's on the Mix Wiz sound
> great; when I monitor the mixer output I'm very pleased.
> However that same signal outputted through the MOTU
> sounds like crap! There's hardly any depth or warmth or
> anything, basically it sounds like somewhere in the MOTU
> the signal gets neutered and shoved up to the very front.

Exactly what are you comparing?

Are you recording the 2-channel output of the A&H with the 896HD and then
playing it back?

Are the levels matched precisely?

What outputs of the A&H are you recording?

How are you monitoring the playback via the 896HD?

What DAW software are you using?

Are you doing any processing in the DAW software?

> Simply put, everything sounds 2-dimensional.

That can be a general problem with recordings - they don't sound as good as
the live feed did when you made the recording. A major cause of this problem
is the fact that people often monitor the recording via means that includes
a lot of live beed.

> Is this an issue of headroom?

Look at the recorded waveform. Is it flat-topped?

> Am I wrong to blame the MOTU's pre's for this?

How is the MOTU working as a record/playback device? What happens when you
loop its outputs back to the inputs and measure its performance with the
freeware RMA55 software?

> If not, what 8 channel interface would you recommend I get instead?

First, let's do a good job of incriminating what you got.

[jeffontheleft]

I can't find the RMA55 freeware you're talking about. Would you mind
posting a link for me? Thanks.

[Dave]

jeffontheleft wrote:
> I can't find the RMA55 freeware you're talking about. Would you mind
> posting a link for me? Thanks.
>
>


http://audio.rightmark.org/downloads/rmaa55.exe


Dave.

[[email protected]]

On Apr 5, 1:16 am, "jeffontheleft" > wrote:

> Am I wrong to blame the MOTU's pre's for this? If not, what 8 channel interface
> would you recommend I get instead?

it is not the pre's... it is the analogue to digital conversion...

Lavery convertors.

[jeffontheleft]

So I ran tests with RMAA 5.5 at 24/192 and found that the dynamic
range is a meager 95.4 dBA. Shouldn't it be closer to 120-130 or
so?

[hank alrich]

jeffontheleft wrote:

> So I ran tests with RMAA 5.5 at 24/192 and found that the dynamic
> range is a meager 95.4 dBA. Shouldn't it be closer to 120-130 or
> so?

You're trying to test the actual device. That's just all wrong. Test
only the marketing materials. They have a much better noise-to-signal
ratio.

HTH

--
ha
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

[Mike Rivers]

On Apr 7, 12:56 am, "jeffontheleft" > wrote:
> So I ran tests with RMAA 5.5 at 24/192 and found that the dynamic
> range is a meager 95.4 dBA. Shouldn't it be closer to 120-130 or
> so?

No, that's about normal. It might be better if you lower the sample
rate, or restrict the measurement bandwidth to 100 Hz-18 kHz. But even
the best analog circuitry won't give you much better than about 108 dB
measuring the way you're doing it.

You need to find out how the marketing department measured it and
duplicate their measurements.

[Scott Dorsey]

jeffontheleft > wrote:
>So I ran tests with RMAA 5.5 at 24/192 and found that the dynamic
>range is a meager 95.4 dBA. Shouldn't it be closer to 120-130 or
>so?

Sheesh, what do you WANT for this price? You can't expect the world
and not want to pay for it. The fact that you can get almost 16 bits
of resolution for this kind of money is pretty impressive.

What's it like if you drop the A-weighting?
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[jeffontheleft]

Whoa Scott, clearly I don't know what I'm talking about. There's no
need to declaim against my questions...WITH CAPS! But thanks all the
same.

[Arny Krueger]

"jeffontheleft" > wrote in message
oups.com

> Whoa Scott, clearly I don't know what I'm talking about.
> There's no need to declaim against my questions...WITH
> CAPS! But thanks all the same.

If you save the RMA report as a web page, the web page will have extra
numbers for 20-20KHz unweighted noise and dynamic range.