Digidesign Shootout

[studio139]

Hey there guys and girls,

I have been working on a small research project that is a relatively objective comparison between several of the Digidesign products as follows,

Control 24 into an HD setup
Digi 003
Digi 001
Digi 882 (TDM)

Along with these devices there is also the control device, a Roland VS1824.

The purpose is to see if there is any significant or perceivable difference in the conversion quality of audio from analog to digital between these devices.

I used an old song I had in Roland format that consisted of 8 tracks at 24 bit 44.1 KHz

2 x guitar
2 x drum
1 x lead vocal
3 x backing vocal

I recorded all 8 tracks simultaneously out of the Roland VS1824 direct outs into each of the above Digidesign devices set to +4dBu, 24 bit 44.1KHz. All settings on the Roland were neutralised (flat), and the same cables were used for each recording. Each of the Digidesign devices received the same info.

I created a generic mix template in protools which was applied to each session so that each mix from each device was the same.

I have marked each mix example 1 through five (the 4 digi devices and the original roland wav. files) and zipped them up ready for download here..

4shared.com - online file sharing and storage - download Short Mix.zip

Also available is one of the guitar tracks of each device...

4shared.com - online file sharing and storage - download Guitar.zip

The audio is still in 24bit 44.1KHz so may not open in windows mediaplayer.

There is a readme file also contained in the zip folder with more details.

Feel free to reply to this thread with your comments and predictions to which example is which Digidesign device or to the email address contained in the readme file.

Cheers, Mike

[brandondrury]

Alright, I finally got around to listening to all of them. I must admit that I didn't give them the robo heavy listen. You can always take two approaches to this stuff. You can approach it like you want to hear a difference or you can approach it as if you need to be convinced that there is a difference.

I'm personally giving up on wanting to hear a difference. If gear is going to impress me it needs to do it in an hurry because my time is very valuable and clients don't pay for sound they can't hear.

With that said, I don't think any of them stands out as being superior.

What do you think?

Brandon

[richiebee]

I just can't get my head round why you're doing this. It seems like an utterly pointless exercise to me. Can you explain?

[brandondrury]

First, did you say "utterly" with a British accent? I hope you did. (I tried saying utterly once....it didn't work. My Missouri accent wasn't right for it.)

I'm not sure I would call it pointless. It's always good to put the gear to the test. I may have been more useful to see how competitors had done. A Digi 003 vs a RME something or other vs a Presonus Firestudio would have been more fun for me. Since I'm not a Digi fan anyway, it was less interesting. It's clear to me they haven't improved their converters one bit over the years, in my opinion.

Brandon