MOTU announces Thunderbolt drivers for Windows

Official Thunderbolt (PCIe via Thunderbolt) support for the PC is a positive thing.
It offers PCIe level performance... with an external peripheral.
The single big advantage is that you can run the ASIO buffer size down to 32 or even 16-samples.
 
Otherwise, there's a lot of hype about bandwidth.
The Fireface UFX has 30 channels of I/O... and isn't close to saturating the USB-2 bus.
Simply introducing more bandwidth doesn't equate to greater performance.
Thus far, even though USB-3 has greater bandwidth, no current USB-3 audio interface is outperforming the best
USB-2 units (RME and MOTU).
 
The USB-3.1 controller on the latest Z170x motherboards uses 4 PCIe lanes... and has a total bandwidth of up to 32Gbps.  Note that this is for all USB-3.1 ports (32Gbps total).  Each USB-3.1 port has 10Gbps bandwidth (equal to Thunderbolt 1).
 
Thunderbolt 3 has a bandwidth of 40Mbps... and connects via USB-C.
 
It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out in the coming months...
To cover all basses, make sure the next machine has USB-3, USB-3.1, and USB-C support for Thunderbolt 3.  
 
If your current audio interface is working well... and not impeding your workflow... there's no need to swap it out.
RME USB-2 audio interfaces can go as low as 4.3ms total round-trip latency at a 48-sample ASIO buffer size/44.1k.
That's good enough for most situations.
To go any lower, you need PCIe level performance.  
Official "PCIe via Thunderbolt" support will bring that level of performance to external units.
You have to be running Win10... and using a motherboard that specifically supports Thunderbolt 3 via USB-C.

I bought my first Motu - an 828 mkII in 2003. It finally started to be flakey in June of last year after many many hard drops (in a case) and after 12 years of daily service. I changed pc's 3 times during its tenure. It's Windows FireWire implementation was rock solid. I am not sure that I could say that Motu was just Mac for a long time given 12 years seems like an eternity in the tech hardware world. Never failed, never crackled, preamps sounded clean.

So, as I looked over specs and pricing, I went with the 1248 as the replacement. While all of the components need to be taken into consideration, I was surprised that the converters and preamp parts it has, are found in units far more costly. The preamps and headphone amps are really quite good. Not the caliber of something like an Avalon, but very respectable.

While I am all in on AVB TSN, there aren't Windows drivers for it from the manufacturers - yet. Both Motu and Presonus have put AVB hardware on the new product lines. I have an RM32ai also for shows and live recording of my band. I say yet, simply because TNS is gaining steam AND multiple hardware companies having development in the works. If I really wanted AVB bad enough, I could buy the Echo Windows AVB card which has asio drivers with hardware discovery implemented, but that card is 800 bucks.

I built a new Win 10 box based on a Gigabyte Z170 UD TH mobo and the Intel i7 6700k - two weekends ago. I went TH becauseMotu made the hardware commitment and I heard that the code was close. I currently interface the Motu with USB2 and the RM32 with FW800. I am very happy with USB2 because the mixer in Motu eliminates the round trip 'press the echo button' AND I can create more than enough monitor mixes for talent. Motu certainly isn't the only company that has a good routing / mixing implementation - the point is simply 'zero latency' to the artist.

I am excited about Thunderbolt / USB3.1 Motu implementation certainly because the only horsepower weak link in the new system is the bandwidth of that data flow using USB2. However, I really am waiting for AVB for a few reasons. 1 - Quality of service makes certain that the entire network of up to 512 inputs and outputs can be handled with the appropriate hardware in place. 2 - works on up to 100 meter cat5 cable runs and I believe up to 2 hops. 1 and 2 allow me to use my existing homes cat5 and use the whole house in tracking - I have a sweet living room that drums sound like magic in. 3 - hardware interoperability. If hardware manufacturers follow the spec, I can plug anyone's box into a AVB router (Motu makes one already and it's good). For me that means the Motu takes the playback role and stays in my little room with a lot of stuff in it (I face the facts - it is no where near a representation of a studio imho) and the rm goes to whatever room I am tracking in to handle recording and performers monitor mix if I need many ins and outs. Since the audio specs of the Motu beat the RM, I can setup the oposit way if I need 192k or if the dynamic content is such that the Motu would be the better tracking tool. That's nice. That RM unit isn't too shabby itself.

As I write this, I says to myself 'self, I says, we live in a remarkable time with some truly amazing creative engineers, making some really great products'. To top it off we have Sonar and these sweet forums.

Take care

LL

JonD

chuckywalk
...No real need for Thunderbolt in the case of Zoom's UAC-2/UAC-8. My 2 UAC-2 units achieve USABLE 3.6ms RTL @ 24 samples /44.1Khz as measured by Centrance, and that's with a reasonable load (4~6 VSTs + 2 analog tracks with AmpSim/multiFX). 
....their engineers have developed a specialized controller and they've highly optimized their driver for low latency performance. The end result is a crazy fast interface. I finally LOVE playing guitar with my favorite AmpSims (TH3/S-Gear/AT4), it feels instantaneous :)

I'm intrigued by the UAC-2, but the mixed reviews over at Sweetwater have me concerned.  The negative ones complain of flaky drivers.  I know the USB controller/chipset has a lot to do with it, but I'm also wondering if the O.S. plays a part.
 
Chuck, what O.S. are you using (if you don't mind my asking)?

I have 2 UAC-2 interfaces; one installed on a i7 notebook with a Renesa USB3 controller and Windows7 (64bit), the other one on a Intel Core Duo Desktop PC with Windows10 (64bit). I also installed/tested one of my UAC-2 on a Windows10 (32bit) tablet. On these PCs, I often work with more than one DAW (Sonar Platinum, S1v3, Cubase 8, Reaper 5, etc) And with all these different PCs/DAWs, I haven't' experienced any major issues with the UAC-2 original driver (v1.0). The only minor issue is that with some DAWs (Sonar Platinum being one of them) you need to open/close the UAC-2 driver control panel a few times before the new setting "takes", but that's all.
 
However, with the UAC-2 updated driver v1.1,  I was unable to switch sample rate in Windows 10 (on all my DAWs). Zoom has just released driver v1.2 which has fixed these issues. Unfortunately in my case, it created a new issue where the interface keeps "looping" the sound being played until you unplug the unit. Yerk! Needless to say, I've gone back to driver v1.0 which gives me zero problems.
 
I believe in time Zoom will fix all these issues, but for now I'd recommend to anyone interested in the UAC-2 to get it from a reputable dealer with a good return policy, just in case it doesn't work on your particular system. Also, before concluding the interface is incompatible with your setup, try different driver versions and different USB ports as this may make a huge difference. Anyway, in my case with driver v1.0 I had no problems with 3 different PCs and multiple DAWs so I consider myself lucky :)
 
Chuck