Question about Apogee Symphony PSU

[Khron]

in spite of knowing they are ripping us off our bias and vanity runs past our logic units warning system.

... And nowhere(?) is that more visible (if not also egregious) than in the audio world... In so many ways.

 

[iomegaman]

... And nowhere(?) is that more visible (if not also egregious) than in the audio world... In so many ways.

So true...I've done many "listening tests" to see how well I could determine the difference between converters/DAWs/Sample rates/Etc...at the end of the day I've decided I simply cannot hear what others are hearing which is unusual because I can actually hear my coffee thermos in another room venting gas at the end of a day, in spite of other room noises etc...that whispy "spssssss" when room temperature and internal temperature equalise and the last bit of difference escapes from the seal...I can hear a dripping sink at the other end of the house...often I am woken up by some faint but unusual sound...things out of the normal sound environment I can almost always hear.

I do know I hear nothing above 13kHz...nada...and I always hear around 12.6 khz as tinnitus in my right ear unless I am next to the ocean...constant high pitched buzzing...but the difference between my Apogee and Avid? Not an ounce...even the Midas on my Behringer ADAT only sounds slightly different and it cost 10x LESS than the other ADDA's..

Vanity is a bonfire in the  pocketbook.

 

[scott2000]

Waaaaiit for it...... ;D

 

[calltheoperator]

Older thread, but have apogee symphony, dangerous ad+, behringer 8200, motu ultralite mk4, and focusrite saphire converters. Here just looking for PSU info, but I just hear a pretty substantial difference between converters. But I also still hear to 17khz in one ear and 16.6khz in the other. The difference is almost entirely in the high end, so if you can't hear that, then, well you can't hear it. But for anyone remotely interested, this is the difference printing through a focusrite scarlett and dangerous AD+ (no transformers activated): Vocals - Google Drive (these are copyrighted, you can't use them in your songs. Artist is MRo for the song Assimil8or, Ryan PWM.. me)

I wont comment about the obvious differences, but the most striking thing was the scarlett's propensity to clip where the AD+ wasn't even close to the redline. Not talking difference gain structures, other similar parts were at identical levels (trying to average like -14 at the regular parts, 48khz and it's all normalized), but the scarlett's ability to handle certain kinds of dynamics and changes is completely comprised in comparison. As a result it's noose floor will always be inherently higher than the specs ever say by a lot, like 10+dbfs at the very least. I don't know the reason for that but at the loud parts it was like "jesus, why on earth would that clip hard while the other one is flickering at -6?" Freq spectrum looks flat on both, but they behave in very different ways dynamically through time on things that aren't 1khz sin wavs and analysis sweeps.

I personally feel like printing through the best converters possible is one of the final key pieces in getting mixes as clear and present as current professionally produced records. It's sort of like, if you want to go fast you can buy a Charger SRT. It will impress all of your friends and most won't notice the difference taking off vs like a BMW M5. They're really friggen close. Last gen's 0-60 difference was just 8%. And that 8% difference is like $70,000... but also one has night vision to see police deer and has those little details to make it a more refined car. I think you can see where I'm going with that.

I'm not making any slights with this next comment, but I have just never heard someone say "oh converters dont matter" or "you cant hear it in the mix" (as if mixes magically hide the sounds they're comprised of?) and then heard the stuff they've produced and had a sudden change of heart. But if it does happen one day I'm all for changing my views since there's all sorts of other things I'd rather buy instead.

 

[Khron]

Which Scarlett model and generation was that, then?

 

[radardoug]

Older thread, but have apogee symphony, dangerous ad+, behringer 8200, motu ultralite mk4, and focusrite saphire converters. Here just looking for PSU info, but I just hear a pretty substantial difference between converters. But I also still hear to 17khz in one ear and 16.6khz in the other. The difference is almost entirely in the high end, so if you can't hear that, then, well you can't hear it. But for anyone remotely interested, this is the difference printing through a focusrite scarlett and dangerous AD+ (no transformers activated): Vocals - Google Drive (these are copyrighted, you can't use them in your songs. Artist is MRo for the song Assimil8or, Ryan PWM.. me)

I wont comment about the obvious differences, but the most striking thing was the scarlett's propensity to clip where the AD+ wasn't even close to the redline. Not talking difference gain structures, other similar parts were at identical levels (trying to average like -14 at the regular parts, 48khz and it's all normalized), but the scarlett's ability to handle certain kinds of dynamics and changes is completely comprised in comparison. As a result it's noose floor will always be inherently higher than the specs ever say by a lot, like 10+dbfs at the very least. I don't know the reason for that but at the loud parts it was like "jesus, why on earth would that clip hard while the other one is flickering at -6?" Freq spectrum looks flat on both, but they behave in very different ways dynamically through time on things that aren't 1khz sin wavs and analysis sweeps.

I personally feel like printing through the best converters possible is one of the final key pieces in getting mixes as clear and present as current professionally produced records. It's sort of like, if you want to go fast you can buy a Charger SRT. It will impress all of your friends and most won't notice the difference taking off vs like a BMW M5. They're really friggen close. Last gen's 0-60 difference was just 8%. And that 8% difference is like $70,000... but also one has night vision to see police deer and has those little details to make it a more refined car. I think you can see where I'm going with that.

I'm not making any slights with this next comment, but I have just never heard someone say "oh converters dont matter" or "you cant hear it in the mix" (as if mixes magically hide the sounds they're comprised of?) and then heard the stuff they've produced and had a sudden change of heart. But if it does happen one day I'm all for changing my views since there's all sorts of other things I'd rather buy instead.

I looked at your files, they are at different sample rates and dont null. Also sounds like they are different mixes with different reverb. If you want to know how well your converters are working, do some null tests. But you need to use the same mix and the same sample rates.