Well... I finally put my money where my mouth was and made the jump.
Had maybe 2-3 hours to play around with it last night and wanted to give my initial thoughts. I think stuff like this really helps when people are trying to compare specific interfaces... and I know Echo Audio and RME get compared often so.. hopefully this helps somebody if they are smart enough to do a search lol.
The UCX wins in my eyes... but it's truly a matter of cost.
Obviously the feature set with TotalMix, Auto Set gain, and DSP effects do a lot to make it superior. The fact that the RME's drivers seem to communicate directly with the monitors and not go through Windows Audio is a big plus (if i turn Windows volume down... the monitors are not effected! nice)... and also, you can have multiple programs open and the drivers still allow you to hear audio from everything (ie.. you can run your DAW and Firefox at the same time and it's okay... you can't do that w/ Echo). The routing in TotalMix looks insane and flexible. I like how you can easily set up stereo recording in the mixer. I'm gonna definitely need to look at some tutorials to figure out what's what. But i certainly got further than I thought last night thru my normal trial and error routines. Took me forever to figure out how to increase the preamp gain though lmao, i'm not gonna lie.
The preamps feel like an upgrade definitely. Little more definition. I can hear a little more low end in my voice from the same mics.
I believe the AD is better b/c I have synths plugged in to the line levels and they sound fuller and stronger on the UCX than the Audiofire.
My first thoughts about the DA were that my songs sounded "smoother"... which leads me to believe that my mixes came out better than i thought. There's a few adjustments I probably would've withheld by listening thru the UCX, especially on the compression side. But nothing is too dramatically different, which speaks positively about the Audiofire's DA.
Drivers are a bit more stable. I can open maybe 30% more heavy plugins like Amplitube at low latency. There's a very good chance I won't need to change my buffer beyond 64 samples.. ever. If so... then 128 might be the final destination for mixing on an intense mix (i haven't pushed a project yet though so we'll see). On the Audiofire 4, I would start at 128 and end at 256 for heavy mixes.
Last thing I will mention about the UCX is that the internal build-quality must be a significant difference positively. I was getting some terrible static noises and HF noise on the audiofire after i built my new computer and upgraded my monitors... and all of that seems to have disappeared from one simple interface switch. Nothing else solved it! Not a power conditioner, balanced cables, or ferrite chokes. Also... I couldn't run video in Studio One w/ the audiofire (despite other people being able to) and that issue was solved w/ the UCX thank god. So.. surprisingly, there must be an issue w/ the audiofire drivers... or S1 just doesn't like their drivers too much. I dunno, i'm not gonna look much further into it.
So yeah... the UCX feels better in every category. BUT.....
I will say this.... the differences and improvements in sound may NOT be worth the extra $1k for you lmao. I personally wanted to treat myself since i got a raise and bonus at my job; I wanted to be able to comfortably say my setup is maxed out in terms of performance without getting too crazy w/ the interface... but... the Audiofire is SERIOUSLY a great interface, especially at it's price range. It felt like a steal if you ask me... should've been worth a little more. The DA on the AF4 was still dramatically improved over cheap older generation interfaces I had (MobilePre and Firewire 410).. the drivers were stable enough to complete the heavy duty work I needed to accomplish.... and it never really gave me much issue for audio.. just the video problem which seemed to be an anomaly and the weird static which is probably more of a fault for me being in an old basement than it is the AF4's fault to be honest. I have no clue how old those wires are down there. The DA helped me to make some very professional sounding mixes, and the preamps allowed me to get some good, clean audio captures to work with.
So... if you have the money for an RME interface... get it, whether it's the UCX or the Babyface which has a much better price tag. But if you can't afford it... don't stress.... the audiofire is a fantastic buy without sacrificing too much in overall quality.
Had maybe 2-3 hours to play around with it last night and wanted to give my initial thoughts. I think stuff like this really helps when people are trying to compare specific interfaces... and I know Echo Audio and RME get compared often so.. hopefully this helps somebody if they are smart enough to do a search lol.
The UCX wins in my eyes... but it's truly a matter of cost.
Obviously the feature set with TotalMix, Auto Set gain, and DSP effects do a lot to make it superior. The fact that the RME's drivers seem to communicate directly with the monitors and not go through Windows Audio is a big plus (if i turn Windows volume down... the monitors are not effected! nice)... and also, you can have multiple programs open and the drivers still allow you to hear audio from everything (ie.. you can run your DAW and Firefox at the same time and it's okay... you can't do that w/ Echo). The routing in TotalMix looks insane and flexible. I like how you can easily set up stereo recording in the mixer. I'm gonna definitely need to look at some tutorials to figure out what's what. But i certainly got further than I thought last night thru my normal trial and error routines. Took me forever to figure out how to increase the preamp gain though lmao, i'm not gonna lie.
The preamps feel like an upgrade definitely. Little more definition. I can hear a little more low end in my voice from the same mics.
I believe the AD is better b/c I have synths plugged in to the line levels and they sound fuller and stronger on the UCX than the Audiofire.
My first thoughts about the DA were that my songs sounded "smoother"... which leads me to believe that my mixes came out better than i thought. There's a few adjustments I probably would've withheld by listening thru the UCX, especially on the compression side. But nothing is too dramatically different, which speaks positively about the Audiofire's DA.
Drivers are a bit more stable. I can open maybe 30% more heavy plugins like Amplitube at low latency. There's a very good chance I won't need to change my buffer beyond 64 samples.. ever. If so... then 128 might be the final destination for mixing on an intense mix (i haven't pushed a project yet though so we'll see). On the Audiofire 4, I would start at 128 and end at 256 for heavy mixes.
Last thing I will mention about the UCX is that the internal build-quality must be a significant difference positively. I was getting some terrible static noises and HF noise on the audiofire after i built my new computer and upgraded my monitors... and all of that seems to have disappeared from one simple interface switch. Nothing else solved it! Not a power conditioner, balanced cables, or ferrite chokes. Also... I couldn't run video in Studio One w/ the audiofire (despite other people being able to) and that issue was solved w/ the UCX thank god. So.. surprisingly, there must be an issue w/ the audiofire drivers... or S1 just doesn't like their drivers too much. I dunno, i'm not gonna look much further into it.
So yeah... the UCX feels better in every category. BUT.....
I will say this.... the differences and improvements in sound may NOT be worth the extra $1k for you lmao. I personally wanted to treat myself since i got a raise and bonus at my job; I wanted to be able to comfortably say my setup is maxed out in terms of performance without getting too crazy w/ the interface... but... the Audiofire is SERIOUSLY a great interface, especially at it's price range. It felt like a steal if you ask me... should've been worth a little more. The DA on the AF4 was still dramatically improved over cheap older generation interfaces I had (MobilePre and Firewire 410).. the drivers were stable enough to complete the heavy duty work I needed to accomplish.... and it never really gave me much issue for audio.. just the video problem which seemed to be an anomaly and the weird static which is probably more of a fault for me being in an old basement than it is the AF4's fault to be honest. I have no clue how old those wires are down there. The DA helped me to make some very professional sounding mixes, and the preamps allowed me to get some good, clean audio captures to work with.
So... if you have the money for an RME interface... get it, whether it's the UCX or the Babyface which has a much better price tag. But if you can't afford it... don't stress.... the audiofire is a fantastic buy without sacrificing too much in overall quality.
