Audio interfaces, yet another thread.

[EggplantTown]

Everyone always talks about audio interfaces being this holy grail of music production and how they'll make your sound so much clearer and how you need one to get the cleanest mixes and on and on.

So I got an audient id14 and am using the headphone amp with the hd650s and there's absolutely no quality increase, it can't just be me right?

As far as I'm concerned an interface is useful for the XLR inputs and recording/phantom power/latency decrease and the amp is useful for driving the headphone louder. Apparently there's supposed to be a sound quality increase as well so any ideas as to why I got no quality increase?

I'm thinking that my motherboards built in sound card just wasn't awful and yes I'm using the right drivers in the DAW and windows output option.

I also don't have monitors to test it with right now, they broke but maybe that's where the real gains are at.

What's your experience with audio interfaces/dacs+amps?

[Timmy Crowne]

My first time using a dedicated interface was an old MOTU box via firewire. My PC only outputted 1/8" stereo so upgrading to the MOTU allowed me to drive XLR monitors. The sound was huge (louder=better), but in hindsight I was comparing apples to oranges. There was no way my bundled Compaq speakers were going to compete with KRK Rokit 5's.

There used to be a wide chasm in quality between consumer-level audio outputs and pro-level interfaces. Most modern computers feature digital-to-audio conversion that's more than serviceable now. The advantages of using dedicated interfaces today usually boil down to multiple i/o, preamp quality, lower noise floor, higher sample rates (which can benefit audio DSP at the expense of CPU), and syncing other hardware. Simple playback probably won't show too much of difference unless you're pushing high volume levels.

[emilng]

I think the quality increase comes from the quality of the preamps when you're recording with and not the quality of the audio after you've already recorded it or if you're just playing back whatever audio you've already recorded or produced. If your audio mix has a lot of overlapping frequency content you're not going to get a cleaner sound just by getting a better audio interface.

Quality is also subjective. A pair of mixing headphones may not sound better than listening headphones because mixing headphones tend to have flatter response which reduces bass and increases higher frequencies which don't necessarily make them sound "good." There are also specific dacs+amps made for listening that increase stereo separation and put emphasis on certain frequencies that make things sound "better" than an interface you would use for music production.

[jam-s]

Most audio interfaces (also the built-in onboard ones) are totally transparent. As said above if you're recording a lot from analogue sources the quality of the preamps might be something you could spend some $ on, but usually any interface with balanced inputs will be sufficient.
If you're working all in the box just using digital sources (REs, synths, samples, or sample based instruments) the money is better spent on decent monitor speakers or headphones as differences in the digital analogue conversion are so small you're unlikely to hear them (even more so without said monitor speakers/headphones).

p.s.: Also have a look at https://xiph.org/video/ to get a better understanding what an audio interface does to your signal and how digital audio works.

[QVprod]

I don't think you'll notice a significant audio playback quality increase in the $300 range. That said I've heard a Pro Tools HD system (~$3000) compared to an old M Audio Fast Track Ultra 8R ($500) on the same Genelec speakers in the same studio and the difference was much more noticeable. You're more likely to notice an increase in recording quality though (should there be) if you were comparing to a cheaper quality interface.