Converter Upgrade

WaveLab
1

Background:
I wanted to update to Cubase 7 which requires Win 7. So I figure if I’m updating to Win 7 I might as well go 64 Bit to take advantage of the additional RAM. I have M-Audio Delta 1010 converters (I have three of them in the Studio, but have rarely ever used more than two at a time). So check the M-Audio website and bingo they have 64 bit drivers. So I buy all the software, create a new partition on my PC and load it all up. I’m playing around and making a few tweaks and everything seems to be working great. My brother comes over and we proceed to test it out recording his drum kit. Everything in the first 8 channels is working great but all channels in the second Delta 1010 sound like an angry robot. So I go through all the normal trouble shooting steps and find nothing wrong. So I start scouring the internet and find that this is a known issue that M-Audio is refusing to fix (Head nearly explodes at this point) not to mention that they are still selling this unit and make no mention of this issue on their website. So if I’m going 64 bit, I’ll need new converters and at this point will NEVER buy another M-Audio product. So I figure I might as well try to bump up the quality of the converters if I’m buying new. So I’m looking at Lynx, Apogee, etc… and choking on the price. So here are a few I’m looking at:

Steinberg MR816

TC Electronic Studio Konnekt 48

Please give me any info or experience you may have with these units and/or any other units that may fit my needs in today’s market.

Needs:
I need at least 16 channels of good quality converters with or without mic pre’s. Firewire or USB doesn’t matter to me just as long as I can stack units up to at least 16 channel (would be nice if expandable to more than 16 for the future).

I have read several forum posts elsewhere that claim the MR816 converters are as good or nearly as good as the Apogee high end gear, but I also found out that when you stack more than one unit, you can only use direct monitoring on the first unit. Steinberg says this cannot be fixed. I don’t need that many channels of direct monitoring right now because I’m using a recording console for most channels, but it would be nice to have it if I ever change my setup. The MR816 also has some nice DSP that integrates well with Cubase. Steinberg says you can stack three units for a total of 24 channels.

Haven’t found much on the quality of the Studio Konnekt 48, but I know TC Electronic puts out some good gear and I’m sure the onboard DSP is good stuff. Each unit is 12 channel, but the output config is a bit sketchy. From what I can see only 8 channels on each unit have direct out capability for direct monitoring. Only two units can be stacked.

2

Seems you are well informed already on the MR816 series. They can indeed be stacked to allow for 24 mic inputs as long as you don’t want too many channels with direct monitoring.
You can however also use just 1 MR816 and add additional channels through the ADAT connectivity on that unit. These can be other MR816’s or any other set of inputs with ADAT out.

3

I have read a few posts mentioning the ADAT connections but I am unsure of it’s capabilities. So lets say that I have one MR816 and one SK 48. If I connect the ADAT out from the SK 48 to the ADAT in on the MR816, then connect the MR816 ASIO in Cubase, all 12 analog inputs from the SK48 would then show up in Cubase on the MR816? I assume I would then still be able to use the DSP mixer in the SK48 to use the outputs for direct monitoring? And would I need to use the word clock on the MR816 to drive the SK48?

4

The amount of channels over ADAT depends on your sample rate, but at 44.1Khz it’s 8 so you won’t have all 12 available to you that way. This amount drops when the sample rate increases.
The MR816 has an internal clock that can sync over ADAT already, so you won’t need to use it in this scenario.

I’m guessing you could indeed use the SK48 DSP mixer to control the internal signal flow of the SK48, to route whichever inputs to whichever outputs. What functionality it has I don’t know, I’m sure the manual can tell you more on this.

5

Having here the mr816X with an Focusrite safire pro 26 io connected with adat. Works good and stable, however I need to have the focusrite drivers ready on my computer because if you want to change the setup it must be done by connecting the focusrite through firewire making all adjustments and then powerdown the soundcard and reconnect through adat. Oh yeah and I’m Always connecting both adat connecters for clocking information through the adat out of the master card.

6

Hi

I run an RME UFX plus a Focusrite Octopre Dynamic MkII via ADAT. Gives you 20 analog inputs, 12 of them with mic pre and 8 with compressors. Works absolutely troublefree on a single USB port (or FW 400 if you prefer). I stayed away from the TC Konnekt 48 because I had nothing but trouble with the FW of a Konnekt 6 I owned for a while. Otherwise, I love TC products and have a few of them.

Regards
Pondstreetstudios