Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[tom eaton]

Yes... well, Apogee made some claim about the unprecedented number of i/o from their one card interface last year...

of course my motu system had been running that number of i/o for 4 years on one card.

they'll tell you what they need to to sell you what they want to.

the lavry/apogee "discussion" was enough to make me wary of buying apogee stuff.

it's fine if you're bob clearmountain and you can talk to the boss, but what about the rest of the world?

and another thing, why aren't there any decent meters on their products?  bugs me.

-t

[Tomas Danko]

On the other hand, it COULD be that should Mr. Clearmountain not be using Apogee converters he'd get no nookie...

[brett]

tom eaton wrote on Fri, 30 March 2007 01:39

Yes... well, Apogee made some claim about the unprecedented number of i/o from their one card interface last year... of course my motu system had been running that number of i/o for 4 years on one card. they'll tell you what they need to to sell you what they want to. the lavry/apogee "discussion" was enough to make me wary of buying apogee stuff. it's fine if you're bob clearmountain and you can talk to the boss, but what about the rest of the world? and another thing, why aren't there any decent meters on their products?  bugs me. -t

Meters suck but when you hear the difference of a rossetta 800 next to a Motu HD192, you can easily adjust to not having the meters.


And, on the subject of MH mixer and Maestro, you only need maestro for stand alone use. Symphony is fully Logic integrated.

I also love apogee service. Motu isn't bad if they think your somebody important which I am not. They offer pretty good policies on exchange and warranty, but appogee had my unit fixed in 24 hours and I was able to drive over to Santa monica Airport and drop it off and pick it up. So them being local is bonus for me.

Motu had the studio's unit for over a week, and they said it would only be a 24hr turnaround. This, and we had a rep involved since this was a composer's personal set up for a big film he was working on. so the priority was there and clear and the promises were made. They just didn't come through. They charged $50 and sent us a new one. But it took almost two weeks to get it and we had to talk the music store into letting us borrow one. So, 24hr vs 2 weeks for warranty work. Apogee has my vote!  

Just to add, they are pretty honest as well. Any company that you can call up and ask for compatibility issues and problems with their products and they tell you the honest truth like " firewire sucks on 10.4 and macintels"  that saved me some headaches.

[Max]

tom eaton wrote on Fri, 30 March 2007 01:39

Yes... well, Apogee made some claim about the unprecedented number of i/o from their one card interface last year... of course my motu system had been running that number of i/o for 4 years on one card. they'll tell you what they need to to sell you what they want to. the lavry/apogee "discussion" was enough to make me wary of buying apogee stuff. it's fine if you're bob clearmountain and you can talk to the boss, but what about the rest of the world? and another thing, why aren't there any decent meters on their products?  bugs me. -t

Actually, we said with the ability to install THREE CARDS in Apple's G5 (Mac Pros weren't out yet), Symphony was the only connectivity solution that offered high end, professional users the capability to utilize up to 192 channels of audio at 192K simultaneously in a SINGLE COMPUTER. We never made claims based on a "one card interface". We also said "high end professional users" and "scoring stages"....focusing on a certain class/category of products.

Putting aside the quality debate and whether or not these products qualify for comparison in this class/category, MOTU gives you half the number of I/O at 192K in a single computer.  And if you go to lower sampling rates with an even lesser quality breakout box, you can increase your digital I/O but are limited to much less analog I/O.

With Symphony you get 192 channels of analog or 96 analog/96 digital simultaneously at 192K. Still unprecedented.

[Ashermusic]

tom eaton wrote on Fri, 30 March 2007 01:39

Yes... well, Apogee made some claim about the unprecedented number of i/o from their one card interface last year... of course my motu system had been running that number of i/o for 4 years on one card. they'll tell you what they need to to sell you what they want to. the lavry/apogee "discussion" was enough to make me wary of buying apogee stuff. it's fine if you're bob clearmountain and you can talk to the boss, but what about the rest of the world? and another thing, why aren't there any decent meters on their products?  bugs me. -t

Tom, as one of the guys involved heavily in that little dustup (and also as a guy from Winthrop) let me unequivocably state that I still would not hesitate to buy one of their products if I needed it.

I just would do my homework and make sure it was the right product and not necessarily trust what the salesmen or Apoggee marketing ads say. If you call Apogge yourself you will get good info from them.

The Motu stuff sonically is just not in the same league as the Symphony/Rosetta or even the Ensemble IMHO. And their tech support atttiude is desultory at best and surly at worst.

[tom eaton]

I use my RADAR as the front and back end via a MOTU 2408.  My conversion doesn't suck.  I have a couple of MOTU 1296 units here for aes i/o at 96k.  I have never had the need for 192.  That's another Dan Lavry issue.

I'm local to MOTU, and have been using Performer for 20 years, and their customer service is terrible.  Terrible.  I've never liked dealing with them.  Every tech I've ever spoken to there assumes I'm an idiot from the word hello.

I'd like to compare the Apogees to my RADAR... that would be interesting.

I'm glad that Apogee's service is up to snuff. That's how pro companies should respond to customers.  MOTU has great interfacing solutions, no one expects them to have the best conversion in the world.

I have, on one recent project, preferred the sound of the a/d in my 1296 to the DAC-1, HEDD, RADAR and L2 that are here.  Weird, but it worked the best for the music at hand (feeding an external analog chain back to the HEDD), so that's what I used.  Call me nuts, but the first time I hooked up the Isochrone to the 1296 almost everthing that bugged me about its sound went away.  Striking.  My wife was sitting next to me and SHE (musician but not engineer) asked me what I had changed.  

-tom

[tom eaton]

Max wrote on Fri, 13 April 2007 16:06

Symphony was the only connectivity solution that offered high end, professional users the capability to utilize up to 192 channels of audio at 192K simultaneously in a SINGLE COMPUTER.

You might as well replace "high end professional users" with "whoever can afford it"

positioning one's self in the marketplace is tricky, but the caliber of the end user is no judgement on the product.  there's been a ton of crappy music made with apogee (and every other kind of) gear, let me assure you.

-tom