SSL Interfaces

IMC1980

These look interesting:

https://www.musicradar.com/news/namm-2020-ssls-new-budget-audio-interfaces-promise-studio-quality-at-affordable-prices?utm_content=buffer6ad3b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer_compmusfb&fbclid=IwAR2D5-951h1z4n3EA2Yc8Fl0TmRzfyTMYTSyu4DnrCeMxX1NDlI3S4ZP-Us

Heartfeltdawn

Specs look good. But like the MOTU M2 and M4, great specs on paper mean zip if the drivers are buggy. 

IMC1980

Heartfeltdawn said:

Specs look good. But like the MOTU M2 and M4, great specs on paper mean zip if the drivers are buggy. 

I will be interested to see the reviews, if they get the drivers right, could be a killer budget interface.

Modellista

The "Legacy 4k" button looks gimmicky.  On the other hand it comes bundled with Vocalstrip and Drumstrip plugins and loads of Avid stuff which on their own cost for more than the interface.  Could be a bargain if you want those.

octatonic

Modellista said:

The "Legacy 4k" button looks gimmicky.  On the other hand it comes bundled with Vocalstrip and Drumstrip plugins and loads of Avid stuff which on their own cost for more than the interface.  Could be a bargain if you want those.

Well it isn't going to sound like a 4k console but I'd suggest people consider it like the 'Air' function in a competitor's interface.
A slightly different voice on input.

robinbowes

I was considering a new interface recently - one of these could be perfect.

menamestom

I was looking at Focusrite and Audient interfaces, but may wait until these come out.

gibsongretschfan

Wake me up when they have a desktop size interface with a genuine SSL channel strip in it

WiresDreamDisasters

A bit meh imho. But I'm not the target audience I suppose.

octatonic

gibsongretschfan said:

Wake me up when they have a desktop size interface with a genuine SSL channel strip in it

Why wait?
Buy any audio interface you like and an SSL channel strip.

thegummy

Heartfeltdawn said:

Specs look good. But like the MOTU M2 and M4, great specs on paper mean zip if the drivers are buggy. 

So true, the drivers are the important thing.

I really don't buy in to the idea that audio quality is really going to make a difference.

It's like how on some forums it's the done thing to talk about the importance of mic preamps but the difference is so subtle I reckon a lot of the people are either just joining in and repeating what they've been told and/or it's the placebo effect.

I'd put my money on people not being able to hear the difference between something recorded on these and something recorded on an existing focusrite etc.

Heartfeltdawn

thegummy said:

So true, the drivers are the important thing.

I really don't buy in to the idea that audio quality is really going to make a difference.

It's like how on some forums it's the done thing to talk about the importance of mic preamps but the difference is so subtle I reckon a lot of the people are either just joining in and repeating what they've been told and/or it's the placebo effect.

I'd put my money on people not being able to hear the difference between something recorded on these and something recorded on an existing focusrite etc.

Every time I've moved up the audio interface scale to my current SPL Crimson, I've heard the difference. From an M-Audio Delta 44 PCI card, I added an external TC DAC and heard the difference. Then the Crimson came along and wham so much more open. I've had the same monitors for 15 years and you can hear the difference between the Crimson and the NI KA2 I use on my laptop. Whether that 'better' sound makes any real difference when recording etc is debatable. 

So I think it's fair to say that the low end interfaces are getting better in terms of sound quality. The difference is drivers aren't developing at the same rate. Many companies buy in drivers rather than develop their own. RME obviously develop their own and so do Zoom. 

Heartfeltdawn

Very good Gearslutz review of the interface here with driver latency info. 

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/showpost.php?p=14553032&postcount=439

Thus far, no reports of bad driver performance or poor manufacturing. The MOTU M2 and M4 are getting reports of driver and product issues. Aiming to pick up the SSL2 in the next couple of months to compare to my Crimson Mk 1.  

Jalapeno

Lots of mojo with the SSL interfaces, not to doubt their accuracy mind.

Cirrus

Presumably built to a price point to compete at the prosumer end of the market (which I'm not looking down on, since I'm currently rocking an Audient id22).

It's hard to believe it'll be a tiny SSL4000 in a box, mind. It'll have the same quality pres, AD/DA, line amps etc as anything else in that price range. It just says SSL on the front.

Cirrus

thegummy said:

I really don't buy in to the idea that audio quality is really going to make a difference.

It's like how on some forums it's the done thing to talk about the importance of mic preamps but the difference is so subtle I reckon a lot of the people are either just joining in and repeating what they've been told and/or it's the placebo effect.

I'd put my money on people not being able to hear the difference between something recorded on these and something recorded on an existing focusrite etc.

Mic preamps absolutely make a difference.

It's just something that you notice while you're recording, so you're involved in the process enough to actually notice what they're doing. If you're looking at A/B tests online or trying to judge the sounds after the fact, you can't separate the effect the preamp's had from anything else that shaped the record, from the string gauge used for the guitar solo to the fact the mix engineer had awesome sex the night before and was in a really good mood while he mixed it.

Go and record a vocalist in a decent studio with good monitoring and do a shootout between a UA610 and a half decent Focusrite channel strip (just to give an example of one I've done). There's a difference, you'll prefer one to the other.

Stuckfast

Heartfeltdawn said:

Very good Gearslutz review of the interface here with driver latency info. 

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/showpost.php?p=14553032&postcount=439

Thus far, no reports of bad driver performance or poor manufacturing. The MOTU M2 and M4 are getting reports of driver and product issues. Aiming to pick up the SSL2 in the next couple of months to compare to my Crimson Mk 1.  

The SSL interfaces use the Thesycon driver on Windows. It's a generic driver also used by many other manufacturers and is a bit of a lowest common denominator. Those latency figures are fairly average and they are't as good as you get with MOTU's custom driver (that is, assuming MOTU are using the same driver for the M2 and M4 that they use for their larger USB interfaces). RME interfaces also offer considerably better low-latency performance.

For comparison, the MOTU 1248 I tested ages ago achieved 3.5ms round trip latency over USB at 32 samples / 44.1kHz, which is half what the SSL achieves (and it offers 12 and 16 sample buffer sizes which I couldn't test).

The SSL interfaces *do* have very well specced mic pres though -- but note that the maximum level they can accommodate is something like +5dBu so they will likely clip if you try to record drums with them.

Heartfeltdawn

Stuckfast said:

The SSL interfaces use the Thesycon driver on Windows. It's a generic driver also used by many other manufacturers and is a bit of a lowest common denominator. Those latency figures are fairly average and they are't as good as you get with MOTU's custom driver (that is, assuming MOTU are using the same driver for the M2 and M4 that they use for their larger USB interfaces). RME interfaces also offer considerably better low-latency performance.

For comparison, the MOTU 1248 I tested ages ago achieved 3.5ms round trip latency over USB at 32 samples / 44.1kHz, which is half what the SSL achieves (and it offers 12 and 16 sample buffer sizes which I couldn't test).

The SSL interfaces *do* have very well specced mic pres though -- but note that the maximum level they can accommodate is something like +5dBu so they will likely clip if you try to record drums with them.

Yep, I've mentioned Thesycon in other threads as being an off the shelf driver generally with regard to my current Crimson's driver which comes from Ploytech. The point does still stand though that there's more reports on GS of driver issues with the MOTU M2/4 than the SSL interfaces so far. The M2/4 drivers are not the same as the larger USB interfaces going by the MOTU downloads section. 

https://motu.com/download

RME rule the roost on latency. 

thomasross20

Thread resurrection. I'm also looking at SSL2 and read driver issues are a lot less than other interfaces. Those who use it... All good? Considered RME but way over budget considering I'd be a light user. 

thomasross20

Only downsides I've heard:

Headphones with impedance < 80 ohms might struggle a bit more. 

Higher noise when gain cranked past 8. 

Otherwise I read it is solid even on windows 10 and sounds fantastic. 

robinbowes

I went ahead and bought a 2+ and have had zero problems with it. I am using MacOS.

R.