With what I do in my studio i can't justify dropping 3K on an apogee
but i have decided I neednew converters. I have an Maudio fw1814 and
it works pretty well (better than the mackie onyx converters!) but i
had headphones on tonight and noticed a very low level crackling sound.
Don't know what it is. Raised the monitor level for my speakers and i
could hear it there too.

So here's my question, is the alesis converter any better than the
maudio? next question, is the tango better than the alesis and/or
maudio and whatkind of difference will I notice? thanks,

Nate

On Thu, 25 Aug 2005 18:54:26 -0700, Nate Najar wrote:

With what I do in my studio i can't justify dropping 3K on an apogee but i
have decided I neednew converters. I have an Maudio fw1814 and it works
pretty well (better than the mackie onyx converters!) but i had headphones
on tonight and noticed a very low level crackling sound.
Don't know what it is. Raised the monitor level for my speakers and i
could hear it there too.

So here's my question, is the alesis converter any better than the maudio?
next question, is the tango better than the alesis and/or maudio and
whatkind of difference will I notice? thanks,

I'd bet a crackling sound wouldn't be related to AD/DA conversion. You
weren't eating Rice Crispies at the time by chance?

The only Alesis converters I've had experience with are either ADATs or
Masterlink. Given that, I'd say either the Mackie or the MAudio is
probably better.

Don't know about the Tango.

Nate Najar wrote:

With what I do in my studio i can't justify dropping 3K on an apogee
but i have decided I neednew converters. I have an Maudio fw1814 and
it works pretty well (better than the mackie onyx converters!) but i
had headphones on tonight and noticed a very low level crackling sound.
Don't know what it is. Raised the monitor level for my speakers and i
could hear it there too.

The noise is most likely not converter noise.
Maybe 'on-the-fly' SRC, or not enough buffer.

Try some other software or hardware before you
determine it to be converter related.

So here's my question, is the alesis converter any better than the
maudio? next question, is the tango better than the alesis and/or
maudio and whatkind of difference will I notice? thanks,

The Tango (particularly the Tango24) is the better
of the examples you site. And I would expect the
Maudio to outperform the Alesis.
You may have issues with the firewire interface,
and/or system configuration conflicts.

rd

Don't know what it is.

Start by determining what it is. Replacing circuity is an expensive way
to find a bad cable or misconfigured driver.

"Nate Najar" wrote in message
ups.com

With what I do in my studio i can't justify dropping 3K
on an apogee but i have decided I neednew converters. I
have an Maudio fw1814 and it works pretty well (better
than the mackie onyx converters!) but i had headphones on
tonight and noticed a very low level crackling sound.

Do the Mackie onyx converters crackle?

Don't know what it is. Raised the monitor level for my
speakers and i could hear it there too.

As a rule M-Audio converters don't crackle at low levels.

Most bad converters don't crackle at low levels, either.
They may hiss a lot, but cracking suggests something else is
wrong besides a generic problem with the model of device.

So here's my question, is the alesis converter any better
than the maudio?

For openers, your FW1814 implementation is vastly
underperforming the M-Audio converters I've got experience
with, which are quite a few: Delta 66, AP2496, Delta 1010,
Delta1010LT, AP24192...

I think that MAudio has fair tech support and a lifetime
warranty. If your problem is a sample defect, why replace
when you can probably fix it on their nickle?

On 8/25/05 9:54 PM, in article
, "Nate Najar"
wrote:

With what I do in my studio i can't justify dropping 3K on an apogee
but i have decided I neednew converters. I have an Maudio fw1814 and
it works pretty well (better than the mackie onyx converters!) but i
had headphones on tonight and noticed a very low level crackling sound.
Don't know what it is. Raised the monitor level for my speakers and i
could hear it there too.

So here's my question, is the alesis converter any better than the
maudio? next question, is the tango better than the alesis and/or
maudio and whatkind of difference will I notice? thanks,

Nate



You need what you need, you want what you want.
What you NEED, you will pay for. I find 'better' usually costs 3 or more
times whatever it is I need to move up from.
What you WANT, you will easily get all muddled about by worrying price, and
probably buy 1 or more same-grade-different-flavor things before you admit
what you;re actually doing, then kick yourself for having spent 3-5 times as
much and NOT actually getting to 'better'.

You get what you pay for.
Lo-end is lo end....
There may be several flavors to choose from
but it's still lo-end

Mid-grade is Mid-grade....
There may be several flavors to choose from
but it's still mid-grade

First Class is First Class....
There may be several flavors to choose from
but it's still First Class

IF you need 'better' then you need to know what 'better' sounds like.
Then you choose the 'better' you prefer and pay for it, take it home and use
it.

Change is just Change,
Improvement is change for the better.
Confusing the two is the source of most human frustration, waste and loss.
It's also what the whole current mid-fi/hobbyist audio market, especially
the entire B-line and ubiquitous chinadensor plague is BUILT on.

Interestingly, I have NEVER regretted -HURTING- to buy a truly Better
Tool... Even when at the moment it seemed IMPOSSIBLY too expensive and I
thought I was a fool to pay so much.

Yeah , Me too.
You can't make an omlette etc...
Stay in, sell off old gear, get a loan.
It is an investment after all...

Chinadensor? is that a word now?

I'm happy to say I don't own any chinese microphones! A few russians,
a few germans and a few usa.

I'm assuming the crackle is going on all the time, but of course I
can't hear it when music is playing- I hear it when the DAW is stopped
and no signal [should] be passing through. The analog outs of my
fw1814 go into the tape ins of my mackie onyx mixer and the cr outs go
to the monitors, so it's entirely possible I'm hearing somehting out of
the mackie. Nonetheless part of the reason for my query is that I
could benefit from an outboard converter in terms of routing options,
i/o, etc.... So this noise that may or may not be the converters is
also a reminder that I wanted to get an outboard ad/da. But I don't
want to buy a crappy one for the same reason I don't buy chinese mics.
The last mics I bought were Josephsons. Still, it's my personal
project studio- I don't record but a few other people, otherwise it's
my trial and error learning station where I still want to put out a
good end result. With that in mind I can't justify spending money for
first class converters- the new converters won't pay for themselves.
That's why I have FMR preamps instead of Great River. So I guess I
want better than what I have, good value for the money, and something
that won't be worthless as soon as I have paid for it (reason why i
won't buy a behringer). The tango looks like it fits the bill, but i
don't know how it sounds. If it sounds the same as the alesis (and
it's better than my fw1814) I'll buy the alesis. If it's better than
both the alesis and my fw1814 I'll get it. If anyone has any other
suggestions based on these criteria I'd love to hear about them. But
almost 3k for an apogee is unfortunately not going to make sense. I
could benefit from the additional i/o options and I only want to do it
if it's going to be an improvement in sound. Thanks for all your
replies and help!

Nate

"Nate Najar" wrote:

[...] The tango looks like it fits the bill, but i
don't know how it sounds. If it sounds the same as the alesis (and
it's better than my fw1814) I'll buy the alesis. If it's better than
both the alesis and my fw1814 I'll get it.


The Tango is a great box. I've used it on projects where other, more
expensive converters were also used, and was perfectly satisfied with
the Tango. I'd recommend it.

--
"It CAN'T be too loud... some of the red lights aren't even on yet!"
- Lorin David Schultz
in the control room
making even bad news sound good

(Remove spamblock to reply)

With what I do in my studio i can't justify dropping 3K on an apogee
but i have decided I neednew converters. I have an Maudio fw1814 and
it works pretty well (better than the mackie onyx converters!) but i
had headphones on tonight and noticed a very low level crackling sound.
Don't know what it is. Raised the monitor level for my speakers and i
could hear it there too.

So here's my question, is the alesis converter any better than the
maudio? next question, is the tango better than the alesis and/or
maudio and whatkind of difference will I notice? thanks,

Nate

Bear in mind that I'm selling an Apogee Rosetta AD96 for $795 (plug,
plug),
but I will say that when I went to the Apogee (after using my stock
creamware pulsar converters for years) I noticed a BIG difference - quite
like going from my old 1/2" Tascam 80-8 to my old ampex 1100 2"/30ips
tape.
A huge and immediately noticeable difference. I'd agree that alesis
converters are not worth changing for. Maybe you'd like to do a swap
involving the Rosetta and fw1814 - I'm looking for a fw box - But I'm
keeping my Apogee AD16. I think having at least 2 channels of high-end
conversion is very important.

Mikey
Nova Music Productions

whoops, wrong button - sent to nate instead of posting to group
Mikey

Nate Najar wrote:
With what I do in my studio i can't justify dropping 3K on an apogee
but i have decided I neednew converters. I have an Maudio fw1814 and
it works pretty well (better than the mackie onyx converters!) but i
had headphones on tonight and noticed a very low level crackling sound.
Don't know what it is. Raised the monitor level for my speakers and i
could hear it there too.


Sounds like clock errors.