MOTU discontinues Audio PCI-E gear in the past few days?

I was looking at the 24 I/O and the various retailer webpages just switched from listing current prices to describing it as no longer available.
 
The MOTU web site has been changed so that it no longer has a current "PCI Audio" category.
 
Crazy times.

Sycraft
That said it isn't as big a deal these days, modern processors can do pretty low latency over USB, particularly USB 3 if implemented properly. 

I think it is this idea that is going to leave us hanging without the good solutions we use to have.
 
There are no companies offering a 24 analog I/O that runs at 64 sample buffers over USB.
 
No one offers 24 channels of 24bit 96kHz over USB at low latency.
 
The USB stuff seems great until you want to use it too outperform what you could do with PCI and then you find out no when has pulled that off yet.
 
I am su****ious of USB as a long term audio bus solution because I have concerns that my system is using all sorts of other stuff as USB and the juggling of priorities must be a nightmare and I can't see it getting any less so.
 
It's not like my querty keyboard, MIDI stuff, or E-licensing is being updated to run on PCI-e to make room on the USB bus for uninterrupted audio streaming.
 
I think the USB audio "revolution" is being fueled by optimism and the fact that usb appliances are cheaper to make than any other choice the manufacturers have.
 

Sycraft
I'm not hugely surprised. As I noted in the other thread, they are kinda Mactarded.

 
I was looking at the Apogee stuff for a short while until I figured out that they don't even pretend to support Windows. :-S
 
 
 

RME charges a ton because they can, I think. They seem to be way better at hardware and software than most pro companies. They do better USB implementation, write better drivers, and hence get great performance. So, they charge a ton.
 
The reason I'm optimistic that USB may improve in the future is USB3. For one thing it just has more bandwidth which means more audio channels, but also lower latency. The faster your bus, the quicker you can transfer data and thus lower latency. Equally important is it can do DMA, Direct Memory Access. This means the device can write data right in to RAM (as PCIe and Firewire devices can) bypassing the processor. This leads to lower system load and of course lower latency. Finally it is full duplex, which means no contention when doing simultaneous IO.
 
Now for any of that to matter we need companies to support USB3, a USB2 device doesn't get any better plugged in to a 3 port, and we also need companies to do a USB3 implementation that doesn't suck. Audio companies are not so great at that whole "not sucking" part so it could be awhile.
 
As I said, maybe look at the Focusrite Rednet stuff. Another option could be three RME Multiface IIs. RME gear can run multiple units in a system and sync. That'd get you 24 analogue IO, plus another 24 ADAT. Doesn't support their newest Totalmix FX stuff, though that is supposedly being ported to it, but without all the effects (since it lacks the DSP for them). Not cheap but $3k instead of $10k. You would need 3 PCIe slots though.

Thanks for mentioning the RedNet. I didn't know about it, so I just went and checked it out.
 
FWIW 24 analog channels of RedNet I/O costs about $7k.
 
RedNet 2 at $3k
Rednet 1 at $2k
Rednet to PCI-e at $1k
DB25 breakouts at $1k
 
The discontinued MOTU 24 I/O at $1.5k is looking better and better. :-)

Re: Post #2
 
No Windows drivers for MOTU Thunderbolt.
 
When/If MOTU puts out Windows drivers MOTU says it will be Windows 8 only.
 
http://www.motu.com/products/avb/16a/specs.html
 
 
I only put my Win XP machine into semi retirement recently and when I bought my fancy new Win 7 x64 machine last year I was disappointed to learn that the MOTU firewire drivers for Win 7 had close to twice as much latency as the Win XP drivers for the very same hardware.
 
I don't want to set up a Win 8 machine just to find out if there is an improvement over my old Win XP machine.
 
 
Progress...
               ...
                  ... 

Never the less, the MOTU PCI-e gear had some of the very best Windows low latency performance in the industry.
 
 

well, i had my sight set on a motu setup..
 
now i will not purchase motu.
 
i use an older PCI card now, and have been very happy with it.
 
why would i NOT want better latency?

the PICe units have been MIA for almost 2 yrs now. I was able to get like 6-10 in that time
out of stock the majority. while Apple may have had a small amount to do with it it really had to do with inability to get the product made (could not source chips for PCB)
 
willing to bet the TB units will work on windows just like the Apollo does even though they say no.

jcschild
the PICe units have been MIA for almost 2 yrs now. I was able to get like 6-10 in that time
out of stock the majority. while Apple may have had a small amount to do with it it really had to do with inability to get the product made (could not source chips for PCB)

 
I have trouble believing that. If that's what they claim it is likely a lame excuse. I mean if the chip was a custom chip, there are no lack of fabs that'll make it for you. TSMC, Global Foundries, Samsung, etc all will happily fab you chips. You design them, they'll make them. However my bet is that it is just an FPGA. I'm not sure, as all the pictures of their PCI card have a sticker over the chip, but that'd be my bet based on the HDX-SDI I bought from them. When I opened it up, it was naught but some converters and a Xilinx FPGA chip on board. Not uncommon for specialty interfaces. Ok well Xilinx FPGAs are easy as hell to get. They are extremely popular, used in all kinds of devices.
 
Also it should be noted that I'm not blaming Apple as in Apple called MOTU and said "Hey, no more with the PCI express!" what I'm saying is that MOTU is one of those companies that is fairly enthralled with Apple and thus follows their lead without thinking much about it.
 
Like take their video interfaces. There's a big market in Windows systems with video interfaces because of things like Twitch.tv. Some of the higher end streamers will use a secondary capture/encoding/streaming system with video capture hardware in it running Xsplit. Pro events will do it too, use Flash Media encoder or the like for streaming on the 'net, and just hook in the capture hardware into their mixer. Well for that, you need Video For Windows support. With that, everything works. Blackmagic Design and Matrox both support that, and advertise how you can use their product with everything popular, including things like Xsplit. MOTU? Nope. Their stuff works with FCP, Premiere, and only more recently Media Composer.
 
It's not like implementing a VFW driver would be difficult, in fact it is less work than the individual interface stuff for each of those programs. However they haven't done it, despite requests for years, whereas their competitors did from the word go.
 
It's not like an activist "We are going to support Apple!" stance, rather it is just a cultural thing of being Mac fans. They look at Apple the The Big Thing, and Windows as an afterthought.

Thanks Jesse.