1 (edited by torbenscharling 2019-11-16 19:44:54)

Topic: Least crippled card out of these 4 options?

Howdy guys, happy owner of a still somewhat snow white BabyFace versione UNO and a now, unfortunately somehow, fried 9632 pci card.

So since I need to re-think my setup, are any of the following cards crippled in terms of active channels, when running at high sample rates?

BabyFace Pro

BabyFace Pro FS

AIO

RayDat

I don't wanna invest in any upgrade that's crippling my potential I/O at any give sample rate or buffer size. I'm fine with working in 44.1 if the card is fast and there's no clicks or notciable latency, but would rather if I am gonna invest, get something that can actually do that at high sample rates without robbing precious channels.

(Bonus question: which would give me the fastest round trip latency for live tracking and monitoring?!)

2 (edited by ramses 2019-11-16 20:17:11)

Re: Least crippled card out of these 4 options?

What is your budget ?
What are your requirements ?
You didn't give any information what ports and how many you need of each type.
Do you need to connect other equipment by ADAT or MADI ? If yes then list the devices.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

3 (edited by torbenscharling 2019-11-16 20:31:45)

Re: Least crippled card out of these 4 options?

Anyway I think I found out the info myself, looks like they are all crippled. Too bad.

Re: Least crippled card out of these 4 options?

Just to clarify when I wrote the post I thought there might be one or two that wouldn't be, but looks like they all drop channels drastically when going above 48k

5 (edited by ramses 2019-11-16 23:59:30)

Re: Least crippled card out of these 4 options?

Yes of course, because thats the way how ADAT and MADI works. According to manual same for AVB and Dante.

Therefore I am wondering why you say the whole time "crippled", these interface standards are designed this way.
For higher sample rates (double / quad speed) they need to multiplex data across channels (2/4)

The following port types support up to 192 kHz without loss in regards to the amount of channels: analog
and these digital ports because they support only 2 channels: AES, SPDIF, optical SPDIF.

What is your problem anyway ? How many channels do you need ?

A Digiface USB or RayDAT supports 4 ADAT ports.
With these recording interfaces you have
- 32 i/o ports (in and out) @44.1/48
- 16 i/o ports (in and out) @88.2/96 kHz
Higher sample rates are really not required for recording.

If you need more flexibility think about a MADI based solution.
One MADI bus supports
- 64 i/o ports (in and out) @44.1/48
- 32 i/o ports (in and out) @88.2/96 kHz

RME offers different solutions for MADI.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13

6 (edited by ramses 2019-11-17 14:07:50)

Re: Least crippled card out of these 4 options?

Would be helpful if you would give information there where it belongs, but you put your requirements or what you intend to do into the thread under "sell classified gears"
https://forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.ph … 86#p147386

Instead of perhaps answering questions about your requirements here.

torbenscharling wrote:

Howdy folks, I am thinking perhaps it's time to look for a pcie AIO card, since my 9632 blew up somehow... I'm using the BF non-pro happily, but would like to switch to an internal card again, to get that last bit of latency and/or less processing due to pci-e vs usb nature of the beast.

So anyway, my BF is in great used condition with minor scratches and indludes both adapter cables, though the one with XLR's have a small tear on the XLR 1 input, so that should be replaced/repaired if you need that XLR in versus using the Phono adapter cable (which is in white btw. the XLR adapter cable is in black) no case, no receipt, but I can obviously write you one for the sale.

I'm located in Copenhagen, Denmark, looking to do local exchange or shipping within EU preferably, but could potentially ship and receive from anywhere if someone wants to do the trade..

I might be interested in other cards, but I feel like the AIO is the one I get the most "bang for the buck" in terms of varied IO and potential to build it out with extension cards and I wanna then later get the new BF Pro HS so ya, don't really wanna get rid of the Babyface since it's an awesome device but I gotta somehow pay for blowing up the good old hdsp 9632 :S


(Also potentially looking for a good deal on a adat preamp like the ada8200 or preferably better)

The costs of an AIO and BBF Pro HS based solution are already quite high:

AIO (with analog module expansion) and BBF Pro HS is already €1716
https://www.thomann.de/de/rme_hdspe_aio.htm €579
https://www.thomann.de/de/rme_ai4s192_a … _board.htm €199
https://www.thomann.de/de/rme_ao4s192_aio.htm €199
https://www.thomann.de/de/rme_babyface_pro_fs.htm €739

In regard to the Behringer Preamp ADA82000, it is only capable to support 44.1/48 kHz over ADAT (this is a hard technical limitation by Behringer).

The AIO is a nice card, but becomes rather expensive, if you need to upgrade analog ports via the optional available expansion modules, see the 4-port analog input and 4-port analog output modules above in the list.

Assumed that a certain point you would need these analog upgrades modules for the AIO (together  €398 alone):
with €1716 you come already very close to the price of the RME flagship models UFX II and UFX+.

If I were you I would invest into the flagship interface UFX+ for these reasons:

1. price dropped down from €2699 to €2139 (€560 = 21% less)
2. price difference from AIO/BBF Pro FS combination to UFX+ flagship interface is quite low, only €423 (+25%)
3. with the UFX+ you have USB3 and Thunderbolt (which is "external PCIe")
4. Additional features which the other interfaces do not have: DURec, Autoset, enhanced stand-alone capabilities
5. More flexibility in level management
6. Only one device / one TotalMix FX instance to manage your recording solution
7. You do not need a digital connection to digitally synchronize two recording interfaces
8. You have everything that you need in one Rack unit which is very solid and transportable in a small case

In terms of latencies:
The UFX+ has already very low latency with the USB3 Madiface driver.
The MADIface driver allows ASIO buffersizes down to 32 samples.
The RTL (round trip latency) of UFX+ USB3 port is very low, its on par with thunderbolt / PCIe based solutions.

See the Excel in my blog article which compares different RME solutions with each other, USB2, USB3, Firewire 400, PCIe based. You will see that USB/FW in the RME universe are very close to each other:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … 8-RME-UFX/

This performance test which I made between UFX+ and RayDAT
playback of 400 tracks Cubase project with 2 VSTs per track @44.1 and 96 kHz and only 32 samples ASIO buffer size
shows you, that you should not be worried about USB performance vs PCIe at all:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … cks-de-en/

And if there should be an issue, then you are still free to switch to a thunderbolt based solution which are available for Windows 7-10 and also in the Apple world.

Shall you need to expand later with Mic preamps or ADDA converter, then you can expand by using the UFX+
- 2 ADAT ports or
- 1 MADI madi Bus
which gives you a variety of options to expand.

More in deep, you could i.e. easily add

- 2x ADA8200 via ADAT1 and ADAT2 which gives you up to 16 additional Mic channels @44.1/48 kHz
  and additionally this gives you up to 16 additional analog ports out, as the ADA8200 supports routing
  of channels from ADAT to its analog outputs.
  Please note, as I said: the ADA8200 does not support sample frequencies higher than 48 kHz

- Up to 4 Ferrofish Pulse 16 MX via MADI to get additional 16-64 ports (in and out) @44.1/48 kHz
  Or up to 2 Ferrofish Pulse 16 MX @88.2/96 kHz
  https://www.thomann.de/de/ferrofish_pulse16_mx.htm

With the UFX+ you have a recording interface which will support your demands now and in the future.

The ARC USB can be connected to the back of the device so that you can even make use of the ARC USB when the UFX+ works in standalone mode.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub13