> Before we blow a once-a-year tax refund on an Apogee converter, could
> someone - a compassionate scientist perhaps - explain to me why an Apogee
> converter is so vastly superior to the converter in, say, an RME hdsp9632
> -
> as to justify it's second-mortgage price tag?
> (I know the best way to find out would be to just listen, but we can't
> afford to order one just to test it out.)
>
> At least Zaolla has 6 pages of detailed engineering specs, data, tests,
> charts, etc. to back up their claims, whereas with Apogee - they just seem
> to expect you to take their word for it.
If you ask me, they're both a little out to lunch. (I mean using all the
specs, vs. relying on their cachet.)
I'd argue that Apogee is *hardly* worth it -- I've never *liked* the sound
of their convertors. Their filters are very "shimmery" or "smooth" on the
high-end, but it's not what I enjoy, nor what I ever got my clients to go
for when I was doing high-resolution digital mastering daily.
(I traded daily use of Sonic Solutions for occasional mastering using
roll-your-own on Linux about 7 years ago, when I became Mr. Mom for a
while and then fell into mathematics and DSP to keep the mind alive.
Pretty fun -- haven't left! I only miss the hardware DSP on the odd
occasion...)
I built some D/As out of a Crystal 24-bit evaluation board that blew the
socks off an equivalent Apogee -- with a good clean power supply and
clock. For about $200 US! For A/D, I found that a 20-bit Burr-Brown chip
*sounded* better than the Apogees at 44.1/48k and 24-bit, though most of
that was still the input filtering.
For 96k+, you may get different results, but I still don't like Apogees
sound -- it washes out way too much high-end detail and does funny things
to transient response in my professional opinion, because of their
stylized filters.
Now if a client says they really *do* like Apogees and have to have them,
I'd never argue with them and go rent a pair for making their record. I
might slip in a little blind testing along the way, but if they didn't say
"Hey - what happened!", I'd let it slide and respect their wishes.
Apogee makes a good product, so I'm not trying to say that they are crap
-- but they also have a marketing vibe, and you don't want to confuse
engineering and marketing!
If it was a personal purchase, I'd be looking at Troisi convertors (not so
much $$) or db Technologies (if I needed something to *really* spend $$
on). [Who are the British guys with the nice convertors for about $12k
that are really a radar DSP house?? They sound pretty good -- Mike
something.....]
Anyway -- this is where the subjectivity *belongs*! Get convertors
because they sound good to you, and that's unassailable. You can't argue
with (or prove) "I like it and it makes me happy." Don't buy them because
you feel you "should" somehow.
Also -- many places will arrange an evaluation for a week or so of some
high-end products. I don't know where you are geographically, but I've
made arrangements for some pretty big products to be flown in for a few
days. If the convertors are that expensive, you can't be expected to buy
them sight unseen.
(I know AID in LA might be amenable, or American Pro Audio in Minnetonka,
MN, or several other dealers out East in the States. In Europe or South
America I could probably dredge up a couple of old contacts)
Keeping the Cult of Saints and Relics **{1} from between your ears and
your music is often harder than it sounds. "Only a poor craftsman blames
his tools," and I'd also say many who credit their tools are dilettants!
I've always tried not to be one of either group! ;)
Cheers,
Phil Mendelsohn
Owner/Chief Engineer, Hotdish Mastering
Past President Upper Midwest section (Mpls) AES
(And a lot of other things that don't justify my opinion any more than
honesty and a whack of common sense will justify anybody's!)
--
Dept. of Mathematics, 342 Machray Hall
U. of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2
Office: 446 Machray Hall, 204-474-6470
http://www.rephil.org/ phil at rephil dot org
**{1} The Cult of Saints and Relics is any group of afficionados (not
limited to audio) who believe that because Saint so-and-so <Insert Famous
Name -- George Martin, Roger Nichols, Massenburg, Swedien,...> used the
relic <Neve, Telefunken, [your most coveted gear here]>, then it must be
the key to success.
