roller boy wrote:Hey people,
I have been reading a lot about the digi 002, Motu 828 (and their newer versions) and the RME.
Everyone of course has their preference, seems split between the RME and Motu 828 but the digi 002 has a lower sound quality than the rest (digi 96 khz) (Motu, RME well over 100 khz).
if you want to use Protools, that means using a Digidesign interface of some sort and there's no way around it - Protools/DAE engine checks for the presence of a Digi interface and if there isn't one, it won't launch. this is true for both TDM and LE versions.
as far as the 002 having lower sound quality, you're not going to be able to discern that from whatever specs the 96kHz and 100kHz you talk about refer to - if that's a sampling frequency, it's well out of our hearing range (even at the Nyquist frequency, which is half the sampling frequency you're talking about >40kHz which is twice the upper limit of human hearing. if it's actual freq. response, well.... that's the upper bandwidth limit of a lot of exceptional audio gear.
so unless you can clarify what those numbers are related to, they are pretty much meaningless. the name of the game is the quality of A/D and D/A converters, and this is often a subjective, non-scientific experience. i'll bet if you A/B'ed a 16 bit Apogee converter next to a lot of the newer 24 bit converters you might like the sound better (a lot of people do, Apogee builds very good converters). the first generation of MOTU 828 wasn't all that great sounding, even though it was a 24 bit converter.
in reality, it depends on what you want to use the converter to do - if you're recording real instruments in a nice acoustic space with excellent microphones you'll definitely want an interface that gives you the ability to record 88.2kHz, 96kHz or even 192kHz/24 bit - you'd want that level of resolution to maximize how "real" things sound and to minimize the effect of DSP processing. if you're making techno, you can certainly do an excellent job with a 44.1kHz/16 bit interface - after all, tens of thousands of great records have been made at that resolution.
i'm sure the 002 is quite adequate for most things although probably not in the ballpark with something by Apogee or even Metric Halo. every interface is going to influence the sound a little bit. you're going to have to spend some real money to get a 8 channel interface that doesn't cut any corners sonically. if you don't need Protools then you could go the MOTU (the 896 is real nice, but the price is out of your range - haven't heard a recent 828 Mk.II but it has to be an improvement on the old one) or RME route but if you do you'll have to use the 002. it's not going to hinder your recording quality unless you are a really picky audiophile. i've never used the 002, i've used a few other Digi interfaces (888, AMIII and the lowly 001 and Mbox) and they were certainly acceptable within reason if not absolutely spectacular in sound quality.
i have a bigger issue about the way Protools, etc. sounds when a mix is rendered in the computer vs. breakout to a console than i ever would about Digi converters, but then that's me and the digital "summing buss" issue has been brought up here ad nauseum lately.