SOUND ON SOUND

[Mick DuBollî]

Hi folks,

I'm finally looking to move on from my first interface - an original MOTU Ultralite. I've had a couple of others over the years but sold them on as they had repeated driver issues, whereas the MOTU has never given me a seconds grief.

Given that driver reliability is such a deciding factor for me (I just can't be dealing with that) I had been leaning towards RME. But looking at some of Antelopes newer interfaces with DSP, free plugins and the ability to use the unit as a DSP accelerator during mixdown, these are ringing bells for me too.

But I'm wondering if anyone can share their experience of Antelope driver stability?

Thanks in advance,
Mick.

[Sam Inglis]

Antelope's hardware has always been excellent. There have been times when the quality of their software and drivers hasn't always quite matched up to that, but it's a bit of a moving target. I've had stability issues with their interfaces in the past, but the Orion HD I reviewed recently was pretty robust, so it may well be they now have those issues sorted. Likewise, their control panel software used to be quite confusing and counter-intuitive, but it seems a lot more logical now.

If the feature set appeals to you -- and they do offer excellent audio quality at very competitive prices -- I'd probably arrange to get one on trial for a couple of weeks. That would be long enough to find any major issues, and to decide whether you get on with their control panel software and support team.

[Mick DuBollî]

Thanks for that Sam. Trying one out would of course be ideal, but it's often a problem in Ireland given the size of the market- Antelope don't even have any Irish dealers listed on their website.

But this is not exactly an imminent purchase, hopefully I'll get some more opinions from owners before I make a decision.

[n o i s e f l e ur]

The solution I see most often mentioned WRT the stability / reliability of Antelope drivers is to run their converters into RME gear (MADI). I think you can still connect to the AA via USB to control the DSP, settings etc.

Not a cheap solution by any means, probably wiping out most if not all savings expected from choosing Antelope - but it has upside in that you've effectively decoupled the driver efficiency / stability / reliability concern from the sonic characteristics of whatever converters you end up with.

Another way to go would be to invest in the RME MADI interface but hook up some lesser converters (like say, Ferrofish?) until you could afford better? Presuming a spend on the more expensive PCIe MADI stuff there, but also worth considering would be the Digiface Dante, which is USB3, has MADI and gets you on the ladder for audio networking in the studio.