MOTU vs. RME

What's your opinion on these two interfaces?

The RME is great - The 828 is a ***

Grab the FF from your friend and A/B them. Find out for yourself if it's worth the extra loot.

IMHO, the FF is head and shoulders above the 828 in converters and pres.

i have the RME FF 800.....I highly recomend it...

I own both. I bought the MOTU years ago when it was first released. It works well and is very stable. However, when I bought the Fireface 800 last year (mainly based on recommendations made in this forum) I was amazed at how much better the RME sounded. I don't think you'll be sorry with the changeover.

G5 DP2.7 MBP2.16 Motu828MkII RME Fireface 800 Atari1080st with SMPTE Track Mac OS X (10.4.8) LogicPro7.2.3 Reason3.05 Opus1&2 Melodyne Stylus RMX Variax600 MotifES8 KorgTR

MotU has drivers that allow smaller bufferrates, so you'll get little lower latency.
RME FF 800 offers most possibilities when you're expanding to get more ins and outs. The sound difference is minimal but mostly because of the preamps.
The RMEs sound very clean, have enormous headroom and are very kind if you get into the red.
If you are only in more mike pres, get the Quadmic from RME and keep your MotU. Than you'll have the pres of the Fireface and less latency.

trust me, I owned Motu gear before getting my FF 800. The FF 800 sounds significantly better than the Motu, and not because of the preamps (which are better but I usually use outboard pres), but because of the converters and the clock. It's definately worth the extra money.......

For me, the UltraLight is good enough for listening to iTunes and even mix recordings that I did with my RME rack.
Since I'm a guitarist, I also use the UltraLight for playing live with GuitarAmpPro because the instrument input of the RME is very noisy and microphonic compared to the UL which is perfect for plugging in a passive pickup.
And it's more mobile.

AB comparisions are quite difficult in that range because you have to swich audiodrivers which takes too much time to really compare for me.
I use what works for me and try to not worry too much about what might be better.
Otherwise I would be too worried to get any work done, or get inspiered by music.

Yes the RME Fireface 800 gets my seal of approval as well. If nothing else it really is plug-and-play once you've loaded the driver. It sounds fantastic and works seamlessly with Logic.

If I was to be really critical, I was a bit disappointed that it's MIDI interface is unusable when Logic is not running - this is due to the fact it is designed to remotely control the RME in standalone mode and not strictly designed as a universal MIDI interface for the Mac.

Here you go:

Santo y Blue Demon VS Dracula y el Hombre Lobo!!!!!

RME use the same ADK A/D converters as the MOTU. The MOTU stuff uses ADK for the A/D as well as the D/A and the MOTU always spec better than the RME stuff.

As you can see, there is an irrational anti-MOTU bias on the net.

Use your ears.

I agree.

I used Motu 2408mkiii and two 24 I/Os as well as an 828mkii all with great sucess in the past.

If Apogee had not come out with the mobile cardbus system for their converters,which is what I'm upgrading to soon,I would gladly have built another Motu2408mkii system.

Cheers

RME use the same ADK A/D converters as the MOTU. The MOTU stuff uses ADK for the A/D as well as the D/A and the MOTU always spec better than the RME stuff.

As you can see, there is an irrational anti-MOTU bias on the net.

Use your ears.


I think the anti-MOTU movement was a result of their earlier interfaces, such as the 2408, and 2408 Mk 2. While these interfaces were primarily intended for 24 digital I/O's, they included 8 analog I/O's, that were, well, in a word... crap. I know, I had 2 of theses things.

It was my understanding that around the time of the second MOTU FW interface (828 Mk2... or something like that), improvements were made to the converters. Can anyone verify that?

All that to say, the FW800 sounds remarkably good.

used, and only given the choice between motu or rme...i'd probably go for the rme. from what i've seen/heard, they still have a bit of an edge in quality, unless you send your motu off for the black lion mods...that's supposed to make a huge difference.
if you can, i would definitely sit down and a/b the two, though...and see what you like better.

if you were buying new, i'd say neither. you can get a metric halo 2882, which goes for less than the fireface800. it has much nicer converters and pres. if you only needed 2 ins, the ULN2 has better pres still. if you did a search, mebbe you could find one cheaper...

kell

Hi Jim,

I did compare the first gen 828 VS the 828mkii,and I did see a very large difference in the A/D and D/A converters.I did not hear that difference between my 2408mkiii and the 828mkii,as they seem to be the same.

I did this with the exact same Logic song,and just changed the interfaces.I even used the same exact G4 computer,same monitors,same everything,to be sure all I could hear was the difference between the Motu gear.

It makes sense that newer generation gear has newer,and hopefully better converters.I guess that's why Motu has the "mkii,mkiii" monikers as part of their naming conventions.

I subscibe to a company that sells electronic components,and they seem to get a new AD/ DA converter from the manufacturers every six months or so.

Cheers

B4 you deep six the MOTU log on to www.blacklionaudio.com and see what the have to say about the converters and the mod thats available. Then do a search of this forum to see what some power users (myself not included) think about it.

Best regards

Les

Hey Les,

I just got the Ultralite and am absolutely loving the MOTU but was saddened to see that they no longer do the upgrade on the Ultralite. Do you have any idea why they stopped doing it and if they will still do it upon request?

I love the sound of the MOTU right out of the box and can't imagine it getting much better (though I am sure it does) but would like to know what a difference the mod makes. I don't need all the ins on the bigger MOTU stuff which is why I went with the Ultralite.

Just curious.

Thanks!