Which D/A Converter?

[pron022020]

I am building a home studio and am looking to buy a D/A converter. To be clear, I am looking to spend around $2,000. I would need enough channels to record drums and probably a few other things at once. Styles range from Americana to Pop to Rock to Soul and Blues. Love the vintage analog sounds. I just want something that is reliable, has good customer support, and sounds great. What should I get?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by pron022020

I am building a home studio and am looking to buy a D/A converter. To be clear, I am looking to spend around $2,000. I would need enough channels to record drums and probably a few other things at once. Styles range from Americana to Pop to Rock to Soul and Blues. Love the vintage analog sounds. I just want something that is reliable, has good customer support, and sounds great. What should I get?

You'll make more progress with accurate terminology, and more info.

If anything you are after an A/D not a D/A. And do you really want a converter (e.g. typically something like an outboard ADAT mic/line in box) or do you really mean an audio interface to connect directly to your computer.

And do you own enough preamps? And you just want line-level in A/D which is what "A/D" would means to most folks or are you after an interface with built in preamps?

I'm going to assume you really want an audio interface. What computer are you using and what connections does it support/do you want? (e.g. USB 2? USB 3.x Thunderbolt 3/4? etc.).

"record drums" is going to be subjective, how many drum tracks does this mean to you? And we have no idea if you are recording the drummer by themselves or want to record multiple performers together. You are better off being clear about the number of preamp inputs you want, number of line-inputs, any digital I/O needs (S/PDIF, AES/EBU, ADAT, MADI, ....), what hardware monitoring capabilities if any you want, etc.

$2,000 will likely limit your scope here a bit.

One path that many folks will go here is to buy an interface with ADAT/SMUX input and add an digital ADAT preamp box to that which typically adds 8 or so preamps (also usable as line inputs). You can buy a lower-cost ADAT preamp with an interface with higher-end preamps, and the high end preamps for vocals, etc. use for lower-end ADAT preamps for some less critical drum or electric guitar cabs etc.

The are multiple options you can look at from good vendors including (in no order) MOTU, Focusrite, Presonus, UAD, RME. And others but some I'll not mention I'd run far away from. You should start by looking around pro audio dealer web sites like Vintage King and Sweetwater. And you can look both for interfaces that have lots of mic/line inputs and/or an interface (with ADAT) and also purchase an ADAT mic preamp box to connect to the interface.

My bias is strongly toward RME gear because of their tremendous long term product engineering/driver support and good customer support. Their engineering chops also delivers interfaces with very low latency and solid reliable drivers. But you pay for that, e.g. to do what you want with a RME interface and outboard ADAT preamp would be ~$6k range. But you could go for a smaller interface and a much lower cost third party ADAT box.

For tracking say 8 drum tracks you may well spend more than $2k on microphones, mic stands, cables, etc. And maybe some decent money on room treatments. You will want to try to balance all these costs. It can make a lot of sense to start with low cost components/expenditure and learn and grow, avoid blowing too much of the budget in one area.

If any of the terminology here does not make sense google it, pick some interesting interfaces and read their product/setup documentation and you'll learn a lot.

At the lower-cost end one interface to look at is a Focusrite 18i20 which you can go up/down from there in quality when adding an 8 channel ADAT preamp.

[pron022020]

Thanks for all the information. I should have been more specific - yes an interface to connect to the computer. It was late and I am a newbie to all of this stuff so bear with me.
I did look at RME and was leaning towards their UFXII or UFX+, which I can find a used one for around $2,300. Or of course buy a new one. I am stuck between the two models though, as the UFX+ of course has more channels than I probably will ever need but it has USB 3 instead of USB 2 on the UFXII. Any opinions?
As for preamps, I don't have any at the moment but will be picking up some shortly.
The whole idea is I don't want to box myself in a corner - I would rather buy a piece of equipment that exceeds my needs than buying one that meets them if that makes sense.

[JFreak]

There is no such thing as "buy this box and you will never need a new one" so buy what you can afford when you need it, which appears to be now.

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by pron022020

I did look at RME and was leaning towards their UFXII or UFX+, which I can find a used one for around $2,300. Or of course buy a new one. I am stuck between the two models though, as the UFX+ of course has more channels than I probably will ever need but it has USB 3 instead of USB 2 on the UFXII. Any opinions?

A great choice.

USB3 is not required for the channel count of the UFXii. The UFX+ has MADI so requires more bandwidth due to increased channel count. Stability and latency is the same on both.

As for preamps, I don't have any at the moment but will be picking up some shortly.

You are aware the UFX only has 4 x mic pres right? You will need to factor in some kind of ADAT expansion unless you’re going to mic your kit in a minimal manner.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by pron022020

Thanks for all the information. I should have been more specific - yes an interface to connect to the computer. It was late and I am a newbie to all of this stuff so bear with me.
I did look at RME and was leaning towards their UFXII or UFX+, which I can find a used one for around $2,300. Or of course buy a new one. I am stuck between the two models though, as the UFX+ of course has more channels than I probably will ever need but it has USB 3 instead of USB 2 on the UFXII. Any opinions?
As for preamps, I don't have any at the moment but will be picking up some shortly.
The whole idea is I don't want to box myself in a corner - I would rather buy a piece of equipment that exceeds my needs than buying one that meets them if that makes sense.

Yep sorry to push the pedantic stuff but it's worth getting this straight and taking time to read about stuff if it's not making sense to you.

Make sure you are clear what all those I/O channels are. e.g. on the UFX+ or UFX II you have four Mic/DI analog in and 8 additional line level analog in. Everything else is AES/EBU, ADAT or MADI.

On those specific RME boxes. I own a Fireface UFX+, it's fantastic for me. I also own a MADIface and Digiface and several other RME converter boxes. In this interface I needed only a few good mic inputs and MADI to outboard other boxes (mostly ultimately to/from digital AES/EBU and S/PDIF).

RME say they discontinued the UFX+ because they ran into problems getting Thunderbolt chip supplies from Intel. But it can do everything it can over USB 3 and does not need Thunderbolt (although I may move mine to use Thunderbolt optical cable to run father away from the Mac). I would hope they re-issue it without Thunderbolt but keeping the MADI, but they have other products that overlap there already. The Fireface 802 and Fireface UFX II don't have MADI, and if you don't want MADI (and I suspect you will not) then the UFX II and UFX+ are effectively the same capabilities. I personally would go for a UFX II over an 802, lots of smaller feature differences that add up.

The four mic preamps on the UFX+ (same exact ones in the UFX II) are nice and quiet, have enough headroom for me etc. You have eight other line level inputs you can add outboard analog mic preamps to but you are going to spend $$$ there say for 500 series rack preamps or similar to get better more "artistic" preamps... which if you have the cash can be a good expenditure... and on the other hand you can add 8 preamps using a quite affordable sub $1k ADAT preamp. For getting started covering drums you can start with a low cost ADAT preamp and upgrade if/when justified. Get some experience with the interface and built in preamps and then as you look for ADAT boxes or external preamps try to borrow or trial stuff that you can return if you don't like it.

As with many modern more capable interfaces these things are a bit complex. I would read the manual for any more complex interfaces you are considering. Some folks do get themselves caught up for example with the RME TotalMix hardware mixer, a really nice benefit of RME interfaces if you want to use a hardware mixer, but some folks don't know it exists, or how to use it, or how to disable it and have it cause problems when using their DAW.

And there are many other nice interfaces from other vendors, we are spoilt with choices.

[JFreak]

Focusrite is also a popular brand for .. ahem .. low cost interface. If you need more than 4 preamps now and 2k is your budget today, take a look. Scarlett series is the entry-level, but Clarett is in good use for many a hobbyist.

[The Weed]

I'm with Darryl when it comes to RME. Great drivers, great long, long term support, clear and clean mice pres and converters, lots of I/O and the cherry on top: TotalMix, which allows you to route anything to anything.

[BScout]

I would discourage going with the Antelope Zen Tour because the company is terrible at long-term support and their software is also suspect (awkward and full of advertising.)
NAMM is quickly approaching. A new UFX is coming from RME (this isn't a secret) but I'd also guess you might see new offerings from Universal Audio for the Apollo line.

[Darryl Ramm]

RME UFX+ part deux with just USB3 would be fine. They could do Thunderbolt 3/4 but I kinda suspect that RME has not forgiven the dummkopf behavior of Intel.

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RME and UAD make great stuff, the trap with UAD is falling in love with their DSP plugins. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯