Seeking advice on 001 A/D & Sound Quality

[knewbee]

Getting a new Mac (867) & 001, PT LE, etc. Wanted to get some thoughts on the quality of the A/D & D/A in the 001. How does it sound on it's own, as opposed to external A/D or clock source? How does it sound compared to other interface options (MOTU 1224, etc.)?

Thanks for your tips!

[Zeus]

The quality will depend much more on the instruments you record, the microphones, the room etc than on the converters.

Z

[yavuzj]

Hi,

It sounds better than any card packages under 900 dollars. Don't let the specs on paper fool you. You can test this by even playing a CD thru Digi001.

As far as mikes go. Yes, they are important. However, same exact mike can sound different thru different converters. The difference can be dramatic as well. Digi001 pre amps are quite good. I would recommend you to do your own hearing test in the store rather than taking my word for it.

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[lwilliam]

I think that upgraded converters will help that last 5-7% of the sound quality. As the others have stated slightly differently above: garbage-in, garbage-out.

Most new DAW owners think that if they buy the same expensive outboard gear as used by the Platinum-level engineers, their stuff will sound as good. It's a myth. 95% of it is in the musicianship, arrangement, and engineering/production details (room, sound source quality, EQ and effects selection, etc.). I'm personally beginning to believe that 90% of that 95% is in the musicianship myself - but I digress...

As has been said before, just because I can buy the same or better quality and types of paint brushes used by Michaelangelo doesn't mean I can paint masterpieces.

To directly answer your question...I would bet that an a/b test with any other converter in the same price range would get similar results. There is no one clear "leader" in the stock converter realm that I know of.

I've heard good and bad about the 2408; I've heard better about the 1224, but it's limitation is that all i/o is +4, not -10. That could be a problem (especially the inputs) with some external gear unless you also have a 2408. Since I don't own either, I'm not sure if you can increase the gain on a 1224 to work with -10 levels without additional noise.