a side note to the Apollo. IF you think you have to have this (why i dont know) i dont like any "combo" products
you want an interface buy an inteface, mixer? same, DSP buy a UAD.

anyway it only works right on TB period on FW it sucks badly. even UAs site say so in better words.

Jim Roseberry

BTW, Firewire has plenty of bandwidth for multi I/O audio interfaces.
PCIe has significantly more bandwidth... so it's very much a moot point for desktop/tower users.

"You can have a 20 lane highway with zero traffic... but if your Fiat only goes 80mph, it's still going to take an hour to go 80 miles."

A question about motherboard bandwidth. I might not have a proper perception of this, but is there a relative factor to the motherboard spec of bandwidth there? i.e. if the transmission speed to it's hard drives are maxed out at 6gbs does the thunderport speed suddenly have to 'slow for children' and reduce it's speed by half because the MB has that spec to it?
And would DMA have anything to do in changing that?

jcschild
a side note to the Apollo. IF you think you have to have this (why i dont know) 

As for "why" possibly a feature of the Apollo that appeals to some is that you can throw UAD plug-in fx on input channels while tracking without needing to run them on a UAD card in the PC, and monitor the thusly-effected channels without latency (apart from any processing latency inside Apollo).

The downside is that latency is incurred when throwing Apollo fx on tracks coming from your DAW over FW and back, same as when using an external UAD satellite box, although there are ways to mitigate that somewhat by running audio from the DAW to be effected into the Apollo's inputs instead of via the FW interface.

i dont like any "combo" products 
you want an interface buy an inteface, mixer? same, DSP buy a UAD. 

Well, the Fireface UFX isn't really all that different from Apollo in many aspects, interface, mixer and dsp fx.
Anyway, I'm guessing a big reason people buy an Apollo instead of (or in addition to UAD cards) is that they want to throw UAD fx on the inputs while recording.

anyway it only works right on TB period on FW it sucks badly. even UAs site say so in better words.

Hadn't seen anything about that. Can you post a link to where on UA's site it says that?


Certainly there's more bandwidth with TB, but FW800 can still handle a good amount of traffic from/to Apollo (at least, as long as you're not also streaming audio with a daisy-chained FW drive), and there is a bandwidth allocation setting in the Apollo control panel. 

Anyway, I'm guessing a big reason people buy an Apollo instead of (or in addition to UAD cards) is that they want to throw UAD fx on the inputs while recording.

Since you're talking post post A/D, I just don't see the appeal.
If it was significantly less expensive... maybe.
For that cost, I'll take a piece of prime outboard... and a rock-solid RME audio interface.

A question about motherboard bandwidth. I might not have a proper perception of this, but is there a relative factor to the motherboard spec of bandwidth there? i.e. if the transmission speed to it's hard drives are maxed out at 6gbs does the thunderport speed suddenly have to 'slow for children' and reduce it's speed by half because the MB has that spec to it?

Liken the situation to SATA-III and PCIe.
SATA-III doesn't cause PCIe bus bandwidth to be limited.

Jim Roseberry
Liken the situation to SATA-III and PCIe.
SATA-III doesn't cause PCIe bus bandwidth to be limited.

Fair enough. Though I think I was thinking more along the lines that a 6gbs HD effectively is received at 3gbs if that's the motherboards max sata port speed?

add: Perhaps it would be more relative to the PCIe standard and not really relative at all otherwise.  :)

Jim Roseberry

Anyway, I'm guessing a big reason people buy an Apollo instead of (or in addition to UAD cards) is that they want to throw UAD fx on the inputs while recording.

Since you're talking post post A/D, I just don't see the appeal.

Not sure I follow you there.  A-D, fx and D-A latencies in Apollo (at least for fx likely to be used when tracking) are minimal compared to the RTL when tracking and monitoring through fx running on a UAD card in the PC.

If it was significantly less expensive... maybe.
For that cost, I'll take a piece of prime outboard... and a rock-solid RME audio interface.

Hah, like a FF UFX maybe?

ot sure I follow you there.  A-D, fx and D-A latencies in Apollo (at least for fx likely to be used when tracking) are minimal compared to the RTL when tracking and monitoring through fx running on a UAD card in the PC.

I'm basically saying that if you're processing the signal post A/D, it's not the same as having used quality hardware pre A/D (especially dynamics).  In this case, you might as well process upon playback... 

As you well know... the RME UFX is awesome.   

air enough. Though I think I was thinking more along the lines that a 6gbs HD effectively is received at 3gbs if that's the motherboards max sata port speed? add: Perhaps it would be more relative to the PCIe standard and not really relative at all otherwise.  :)

The limiting factor with SATA is the speed of the HDs themselves.
No single conventional SATA-III HD is fast enough to saturate the SATA-II bus... let alone the SATA-III bus.
Thus, you'll achieve the same performance connecting a SATA-III HD to a SATA-II or SATA-III controller.

lol i keep looking for the "like" button
even the SSDs cant fully saturate the Sata 600 close but not completely..