Motu 1296 as good as HD 192
 

I just spoke with a salesman from motu and he emphaticaly stated that the motu 1296 sounds as good as the 192I/O, and that the internal components and overall design were roughly the same? He said for sure that the 1296 sounded considerably better than the 888I/O, and the clocking was vastly superior. He claimed that an 800mghz dual mac will give alot more processing power than my mix plus system? Plus he said that my mixes will sound alot better because plugins using the internal processor don't cause latency, and I could buss things till I'm blue in the face without any latency issues. If what he said is true then hooray. He didn't say too much when I asked him about 3rd party software developers putting more into their TDM plugins?

Re: Motu 1296 as good as HD 192
 

Without insulting MOTU or the sales rep... You get what you pay for. I'll have more to say after I stop laughing so hard [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Motu 1296 as good as HD 192
 

Can you back up those laughs? Who out there has compared the two systems?

Re: Motu 1296 as good as HD 192
 

Let's pretend for a minute that the 1296 sounded as good, or god forbid, better than a 192. Just for the sake of argument.

Who the hell cares?

A system is only as good as the sum of its parts. Pro Tools has a far far far superior audio editor, more DSP power (yes, the motu rep was in fact incorrect on that one), and is compatible with everyone else.

So even if the 1296 sounded better... are you really going to buy a Motu system?

You get what you pay for.

Re: Motu 1296 as good as HD 192
 

I have a friend who just sold his mix plus to go logic audio 5. He is now running a dual gig G4 with motu and swears that his stuff sounds way better than it ever did on his mix system (he had an 888 and a 20bit adat bridge). His engineer whom I trust has in fact confirmed this.

I've heard before that the motu stuff sounds better than the 888's. It is very possible that logic 5 with the motu sounds better than the mix plus system. We are planning a little test to see if it sounds better than my rig (mix plus, apogee trak2, g4 450) Considering that the hd system and the mix sytem sound about the same at 48K, there may be some truth to the motu claim although I hope not.

Re: Motu 1296 as good as HD 192
 

And I have heard plenty of testimonies that are just the opposite of that. It's a pointless debate. I hear plenty of people boasting about native systems running better, but when ever I witness one, that is not the case. I will believe it when I actually see it (thought I don't doubt people have had successful experiences).

Re: Motu 1296 as good as HD 192
 

Everyone works differently. What is a "full mix" to one person is a "rough mix" to the next. Motu might sound better to someone who just saved themselves 20 grand. It's all relative. You have to go by your own experience when it comes to this stuff.

Re: Motu 1296 as good as HD 192
 

I can't speak to this 1296 vs. 192 thing and I certainly don''t want to start a war here but...

My partner and I have pretty much switched to running DP3 on top of our MixPlus hardware. Why? It's sure not the editing features, it sure ain't the endless interface, it most definitely is not the ridiculous DP mixer...

It's the sound.

The same exact SDII files (run at unity) sound much better to us coming out of DP3 using the same MixPlus hardware and converters. And let me say this, we don't do any summing inside the computer(we've got a nice analog console). Even individual files have more definition and are smoother to our ears. It seems like some sort of witchcraft.

The practical application is that we have mixed several songs in both PT and DP and A/B'd them and the DP mixes almost invariably sound better and take less time. We just don't have to work as hard.

Well, except for the stupid DP mixer and lack of multitrack editing features. That is a pain. We use Radar for tracking and only mix and edit from the computer so latency isn't really an issue for us. We have talked of switching over several times but the simplicity of having everything in two screens on ProTools is so much easier to work with, that it hasn't been worth it...yet.

We're currently testing Nuendo and we've got some hopes because honestly, that Powered Plugins card sounds incredible and the Oxford Plug is coming to the Powercore and OS X is around the corner (the great latency equalizer)...

That's my $.02.

evan
spectre

Re: Motu 1296 as good as HD 192
 

Latency is a real problem for native systems. From what I've heard (2408 w/ DP3 on a G4 800) latency would really be a deal-killer in a high-pressure studio environment. Great for a home or project studio with an undemanding or novice clientelle. Perhaps this will improve to an acceptable point down the road?

Re: Motu 1296 as good as HD 192
 

Oh, and as I understand it, if you're runnning DAE under DP (using your mix system with Performer) you're still using the TDM mixer plugin, TDM plugins, and ProTools hardware. Same inputs, same outputs, same processing.