I did an interesting experiment this week. well, it was for me.
I've had an Audient Sono sitting on my desk for a while now, and I like it a lot for recording and for just playing back music for listening pleasure using the computer as a streamer. I've also got a cheap little Behringer mixer that I bought to use in lockdown as a remote practice device to play with my neighbour without us leaving our respective houses. I don't leave that out on the desk.
I thought it might be nice if I did have the ability to play, mix and record without getting out the mixer every time and plugging stuff in, etc., etc. To that end I bought a Yamaha MG10-XU. It arrived yesterday and I tried it out. As the main reason for buying was to have a mixer on the desk that replaced the Sono, I tried that aspect first.
Awful. Compared to the Sono, music I know really well sounded thin and unmusical. There's an Elbow track called "Bones Of You" with a distinctive synth bass part underpinning the chorus. The Yamaha couldn't decode it - it was harsh and lo-fi sounding rather than the fat mono synth sound I knew. All of the music I played back sounded better using the Sono.
It's gone back. I couldn't find the heart to try it as a recording device or an analogue mixer. It failed on the first feature that I bought it for.
And that's the story...
Comments
It sounds good to me but its only to make my guitar and backing music in sync. They're not overly fussed on it sounding studio quality. (Way better than using the webcam mic though!)
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
My first professional rig was PT24 and the converters were 20 bit rather than 24 and they certainly had a sound that I can still hear today. One giveaway of a bad sounding convertor is the stacked sound effect, which becomes more apparent as the track count goes up. The more tracks you do the more you hear the effect of the poor converter. Once I got a 192 and HD I never noticed that stacked effect, the conversion seemed a lot more transparent but a lot of engineers still bused those out to external better convertors.
I monitored on headphones, through speakers through the monitor outputs and through speakers on the main outputs.
Connection was just a USB cable - but not the same one. The Sono has a USB-C socket and the Yamaha has a USB-B socket. I did try a second cable just in case the first one I used was defective in some way, but got the same result.
It was a second hand mixer, which is why I returned it rather than swapped it out, and it hasn't put me off the MG10XU, just not that specific unit, which clearly has some sort of problem somewhere. It's just the game has changed from an impulsive casual tryout of an inexpensive mixer into a proper think about what I want if I'm going to do this properly.
i uses one extensively in my little project studio for TV stuff and voiceovers as well as band stuff. It has a fine sound.
It was probably just faulty - but a heck of a difference and a shock. I might well try a new one to see how that goes. There's no point in debugging a second hand unit that only cost me £130 in the first place.
I've got a number of different converter technologies here, some prosumer (UA Apollo), some pro end (Focusrite Red/Rednet) 'super high end (Avid MTRX).
I also have the usual PC Soundcard outputs, phones, iPads etc.
In terms of listening in the studio there isn't actually a huge difference (although there is a difference) been the low end and the super high end when dealing with single source or finished mixes.
Audio quality in even moderately cheap devices is pretty darn good.
Why then would you go for a high end converter?
Seems like a waste of money?
Perhaps or perhaps not.
I'm largely concerned with things other Han audio quality when buying converters now, because they all sound very good.
There is a small but appreciable difference between the converters in the Avid MTRX compared to something like a low end audio converter. The main issues I am focussed on is expandability, routing, monitoring, driver support and latency.
Converter quality is after all of that.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com