recommendations for 8 in / 8 out ADAT converters in 2024 ? (older Apogee Rosetta? RME ADI-8?)

[Michael Tibes]

As much as I like Apogee's sound quality, I'd stay clear of them because of their not so great reliability, unavailability of schematics and bad support for older units ('we don't have these old parts any more...')

 

[Mworthin]

We had some MOTUs. They are fine. Sound good. Well made. I was impressed with their cast alu chassis, for instance.

The only reason we stopped using them, is because the local importer changed it's service. Before, we paid a resonable exchange rate for repairs. Sometimes we got a new one, usually the exchange was a repaired one. That suited our administration well. They always suspect some monkey-business if repairs are expensive. Of course, not if the price is fixed and known beforehand.

These days, they feel you should simply buy a new one. Out-of-warranty repairs are slow and fairly expensive.

We bought Behringer ADA8000s. Cheap and cheerful. And RME interfaces. We can usually fix what goes wrong with them in-house. Parts are available and reasonably priced. But, most important to us: drivers are updated frequently and even for very old gear. Frankly, RME is the only manufacturer I can think of that cares for old stuff. I used to hate RME. Until I was forced to use one and RTFM. It took a while, but I can't live without TotalMix and DigiCheck these days.

This is the way I feel about my Metric Halos. I have a ULN-2 that I bought in 2004 and still in use, although not as much as my ULN-8s. They keep supporting them, although I don’t think any more ULN-2s will be made (due to chip availability).

 

[kramerb1]

+1 on Alesis HD24s and Motu. I still have 3 of the XRs (24channels at 48k or 12 channels at 96k each), 2 of them with Jim Williams mods on the analog sections, and a couple Motu 16As. Way more i/o than I’ll ever need. All sound great.

I still have 2 sets of the standard Alesis 48k boards (48 channels worth), if anyone is interested.

 

[Tubetec]

Im still trying to locate sata caddies for my HD24 .

 

[rp]

I have an RME UCX and I extend it via adat with a Motu 8A. They both fit in a nice little 1/2 width rack. The motu is exactly 8 in and 8 out. I think it sounds as good or better than the RME, but the RME has the superior interface and routing. You might be able to pick up a used 8a for fairly cheap. I've also successfully used them together as part of an aggregate device on mac os to keep the full channel count while using higher sample rates. My rme is old - maybe 10 years. Not sure how the newer ones compare.

 

[Nen'O]

I'm putting up for sale Metric Halo 2882. Going to list here on black market. Converters are stelar and it's rock solid adat stand-alone mode. It will be hard to find something that good for that money

 

[zzzzz]

I'm putting up for sale Metric Halo 2882. Going to list here on black market. Converters are stelar and it's rock solid adat stand-alone mode. It will be hard to find something in that good for that money

That’s a great price. Wish it made sense for me right now — unfortunately have to drop a bunch of money because of car troubles so this converter endeavor is currently on hold lol…

 

[Roboburger]

As much as I like Apogee's sound quality, I'd stay clear of them because of their not so great reliability, unavailability of schematics and bad support for older units ('we don't have these old parts any more...')

+1. I have purchased exactly one Apogee product, and it died at almost exactly the 1 year point. Then I received a laughably bad customer service email thread full of questions that are answered in the email thread above where he asked them- with screen captures marked up with circles. It took over a week to get an RMA#, and during that almost-two-weeks, he told me that he was being so thorough so as to not waste my time sending in a unit that didn't need to be sent in. He said an estimate for the repair was not available for my problem. When the repair came back, the charge was almost the cost of a new unit, and greater than the cost of a competitor that I should just bought in the first place.

Maybe they got a good product, but after all that, I'll never know.

 

[machprod]

WRT the digiface, and the lightpipe end.
I bought a couple minidsp's (link below), which has given new life to my firewire interfaces. And I can use my MOTU 2408s as digital switchers (patch bay-ish), this is awesome with the number of devices I have. I also use them to offload FX to other computers when a session gets heavy.

Sadly, you have to flash them to get light-pipe working, and they dont publish their code. BUT these boxes can send/recv 8ch @ 92k for those who use sample rates higher than 48k.

https://www.minidsp.com/products/usb-audio-interface/mchstreamer-box ( I use them on mac and linux )

PS: I was going to buy some apogee mic pre's and didnt know about the support issues. thanks to Michael Tibes for the note

 

[Andybb]

As much as I like Apogee's sound quality, I'd stay clear of them because of their not so great reliability, unavailability of schematics and bad support for older units ('we don't have these old parts any more...')

Really? I’ve been using the same 32 I/o 13 year old apogee symphony mk 1 with zero technical issues and it still works with the newest version of Mac OS and silicone and protools hdx. I had problems getting past apples new security updating to a new Mac and apogee’s support walked me through the code to get it recognized. That’s a legacy product supposedly not supported by tech support but they were happy to help. My experience with apogee is the opposite of yours.

 

[Toobme]

Black Lion Revolution 8 ch adat i/o.

 

[vintagelove]

To be fair, Apogee still services the ad/da16x, which is pretty old at this point.

That was as of several months ago. I have a perfect AD, but a DA with 1 channel low in volume that's laying around. They said 100 bucks min, 500 max (probably a whole board replacement?). Not too bad considering the age. One of these days I have to figure out what to do with them (as I have a symphony setup here now).

Yes it does suck they don't have schematics. But you know damn well if they made them available, in 3 months there would be a knockoff on the market.

 

[chilidawg]

If you can find a Lynx Aurora with the ADAT card installed you'd be golden, the bang for the buck on those is amazing these days. Tricky part is finding one with the ADAT card though, they seem more of a rarity while HDX and no extender cards are available all day long for cheap. Other than that, from my own experience an old Multiface is a pretty safe bet.

One that I have been curious about is the SSL Alpha Link. You see these things cheap (relatively) on eBay and Reverb with tons of I/O and connectivity options and it's SSL. Reviews are pretty much non-existent though...

I hope it's not like the SSL Alpha Link mic pre that has a cheap $2 SMPS/power adaptor mounted inside it. I repaired several of them about 8 years ago, all died with the same symptom, the TNY switching IC blown to bits because most of the caps have failed and leaking.

 

[Philbo King]

Would a Behringer ADA8000 be worth considering? Super cheap

The ADA8000 had power supply reliability issues (they had parts that ran hot and eventually failed). But these were solved in the ADA8200. I have one and it has proved to be very reliable. The only caveat is (in my loopback measurements) it drops off by 0.5 dB at 20Khz.

I read somewhere on the gearspace forum that Elton Johns studio has/had a large number of them in that setup. Sorry, no link, it was quite a while ago.

 

[scott2000]

To be fair, Apogee still services the ad/da16x, which is pretty old at this point.

That was as of several months ago. I have a perfect AD, but a DA with 1 channel low in volume that's laying around. They said 100 bucks min, 500 max (probably a whole board replacement?). Not too bad considering the age. One of these days I have to figure out what to do with them (as I have a symphony setup here now).

Yes it does suck they don't have schematics. But you know damn well if they made them available, in 3 months there would be a knockoff on the market.

good to know about the x series .
My opinion is that they could release the not so special parts of the circuits and leave the magical parts in blocks on the drawings.
I literally just copied the chip manufacturer application notes when troubleshooting my Rosetta's input/output section . Could have saved a bunch of time had it been provided, especially since it was in that section..
Apogee was helpful though and went from saying they don't repair the Rosettas to they felt confident they could fix mine after I shared the progress being made . Fortunately other members here saw the issue from my drawings and measurements too and it was a successful repair.

 

[vintagelove]

good to know about the x series .
My opinion is that they could release the not so special parts of the circuits and leave the magical parts in blocks on the drawings.
I literally just copied the chip manufacturer application notes when troubleshooting my Rosetta's input/output section . Could have saved a bunch of time had it been provided, especially since it was in that section..
Apogee was helpful though and went from saying they don't repair the Rosettas to they felt confident they could fix mine after I shared the progress being made . Fortunately other members here saw the issue from my drawings and measurements too and it was a successful repair.

That's a helpful bit of info, thanks. One of these days I'm going to take a look at the low output channel on the da16x here. I'll make sure to check those application notes.

Just haven't bothered yet as I have the new SE converters here, and they're great. The AD/DA 16's have just been sitting since (though honestly, I think they still sound very good, just don't have adat I/O anymore).

 

[rainy-taxi]

Creamware A16 could be of interest. As others have mentioned, the Motu's are a good deal. Otherwise, look into Mackie Onyx 800R, older revisions of the Audient ASP880, or something from Presonus.

 

[Forcemusicgroup]

Ha Haaaaa.... Im still rocking the Trak2 for the Pres on my summing. I'd also comment, If your in the UA ecosystem it may be best to just get a used silver face duo for about $600. Lots of benefits being able to run close to 60 channels at 192khz Sample rate.

 

[snakecained2]

Still surprised no one serious is addressing this hole in the market (except Ferrofish)

Choices:
Old Apogee AD/DA 16 and X Versions and Rosetta
Old RME ADI-8
Old Lucid
Old Prism (flaky but when it it works it sings)

I have an Audient ASP880 for the AD which is fine but want an 8 channel 24/96 capable DAC.

Oh and stay away from the old SSL boxes, they were not properly balanced on the Outputs!

 

[Rob Flinn]

Oh and stay away from the old SSL boxes, they were not properly balanced on the Outputs!

What is wrong with the way they're balanced ?