RME Fireface

[trash116]

Hi,

After some consideration, and some good advice on here, I'm looking to purchase a new audio interface.

I'm swinging back and forth between a RME Fireface 802 and a Fireface UFXII.....

Has anybody got any thoughts or advice

Thanks

[CS70]

That would depend on why you are swinging

Tell us more of what u want to do with 'em...

[trash116]

hahaha yes good point i was a little vague.

I am in a situation where i've moved my (hobbyist home setup) from purely in-the-box... to a point where i now have some hardware - a couple of synths, some FX boxes, and some cheap outboard old reverb gear (+my existing guitar and bass).

My thoughts were to have more of my gear permanetly connected, but primarily to use some of my FX and outboard as external send/returns with my DAW.

I also wanted to improve the general quality of my audio interface for recording.

I don't really record more than one or two tracks/inputs at once.

I posted on here and got some great advice, which sort of boiled down into a couple of suggestions:

An audio interface with more in/outs
A mixer based set up
Pacthbay

Think I am going to go the way of an interface with more ins/outs.... RMEs recommended by a few people for the normal reasons- quality, support, latency etc.

The main thing that is keeping me swinging (PS need to stop using that phrase) between the 802 and the UFXii is price really, and will i get the benefit in my situation from the UFXii for the extra cash.

I could afford the UFXii -- but like most hobbyist --- have to make my choices where to invest wisely --- and i cant seem to decide

[CS70]

Yeah you cant go wrong with RME - no matter what it's top notch stuff.

From what I can see you pay for display and digital gain control, but perhaps the biggest difference is direct recording to usb device or not. If you'll have permanently connected to a PC/DAW, it won't really matter much, and to a degree the display on interface (not sure if it is before or after the A/D conversion tough, it's mostly helpful only if you can see levels before)

Also looks like the 802 has slightly more I/O on board (i.e. without looms) which helps... once you start with outboard the "+1" principle applies and you never have enough I/O.

Both seem killer interfaces but for the aims you mention I'd go with the 802 as it should be less expensive.

[fatbenelton]

Synthax (RME's UK distributor) have an ex demo 802 for sale @ £1099 at the moment....

https://www.synthax.co.uk/b-stock/b-sto ... ce-802-02/

[jaminem]

I had a similar conundrum and went for the 802, thinking that I wouldn't want the standalone recording.
There has been 1 remote session that I did where that would have been really handy, but aside from that I haven't missed it.

I think the UFX has marginally better audio performance if that matters to you, but I really can't hear owt wrong with the 802...

The dedicated gain knobs on the 4 front panel pre-amps are, to my simple mind in mid session tweakage, easier to handle, but again I doubt you wouldn't get used to the digital gain control.

Finally the fact that the 802 has 8 quarter inch TRS jacks for both in and out, means you can connect up standard trs 8 way looms. The outs on the UFX are 6 TRS and 2 xlr so if you were attaching it to a pacthbay then you would need some adaptors or a custom loom. Of course, if you were connecting the XLR's to your monitors as is their intention then xlr's are the better (easier) option!

You're not going to wrong either way...

[OneWorld]

What would make me tend to towards the UFX is the ability to record, but as other contributors have mentioned, any RME product will be well supported and utterly reliable

[trash116]

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to say a big thank you to all that replied, it was useful to get your thoughts.

I was chasing down a second hand ufxii, but in the end I went for an 802... Primarily as i thought it was great for my needs and in all honesty i managed to secure the ex-demo one from Synthax that @fatbenelton mentioned (thanks for that tip off) at a really great price from them (after abit of haggling) - and that really made my mind up.

Once again, thanks all, looking forward to using it now.

[Drew Stephenson]

[fatbenelton]

Nice one - enjoy!