Re: [LAU] Sound quality of the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 2nd Gen

Hello Tom, Hello Ralf, Hello List!

I own a Scarlett 18i6, which is a little bit older (3 Generations older
than the device you are talking about) and i think the outputs are quite
good. So i am a little surprised there are such issues. Maybe the
hardware is getting worse over the time?

Anyway, thank you for your intensive testing and your feedback on the
linux support, someone who thinks about bying a new device will thank
you too ;)

I hope you have luck on your further testing, have a nice sunday!

~Georg

Am 08.01.2017 um 12:20 schrieb Ralf Mardorf:
> Hi Tom,
>
> thank you for reporting your experiences. Until now I only tested the
> outputs. Not only the headphone outputs sound bad, the analog line
> outputs sound disgusting, too. The sound is comparable to turning on
> Dolby B on a cheap tape recorder, without pumping, but with cutting
> highs and in addition with boosting bass or like having dirt in the ear
> or having hearing issues caused by a cold. All analog outputs are
> unusable crap. The companies claim that it's a professional device is a
> lie, it's even not a home recording or cheap hifi device.
>
> I experienced a new issue, that might be an issue for all USB devices on
> my machine. I didn't do that much tests with the Presonus as I already
> did with the Focusrite. A few times Qtractor as well as Ardour had
> issues to read WAV data from the hard disk. Fortunately Ardour informs
> about the reason, Qtractor doesn't. One time I needed to restart the
> computer to get rid of it. I tested two SATA HDDs, so it's seemingly
> not a broken HDD, but most likely an issue related to USB.
>
> It seems not to be related to an IRQ...
>
> [rocketmouse@email-addr-hidden ~]$ rtirq status
>
> PID CLS RTPRIO NI PRI %CPU STAT COMMAND
> 126 FF 90 - 130 0.2 S irq/19-ehci_hcd
> 130 FF 90 - 130 0.0 S irq/16-ohci_hcd
> 152 FF 89 - 129 0.0 S irq/17-ohci_hcd
> 154 FF 88 - 128 0.0 S irq/18-ohci_hcd
> 155 FF 88 - 128 0.0 S irq/17-ohci_hcd
> 157 FF 87 - 127 0.0 S irq/18-ohci_hcd
> 274 FF 85 - 125 0.0 S irq/18-snd_hdsp
> 32 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/9-acpi
> 48 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/8-rtc0
> 78 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/26-radeon
> 115 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/1-i8042
> 129 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/22-firewire
> 132 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/22-ahci[000
> 142 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/14-pata_ati
> 143 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/15-pata_ati
> 261 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/7-parport0
> 436 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/27-enp3s0
> 3 TS - 0 19 0.0 S ksoftirqd/0
> 17 TS - 0 19 0.0 S ksoftirqd/1
>
> ...ahci doesn't share its IRQ with USB. However, I'll continue with
> some fine tuning.
>
> [rocketmouse@email-addr-hidden ~]$ sudo modprobe -r pata_atiixp
> [rocketmouse@email-addr-hidden ~]$ sudo modprobe -r firewire-ohci; sudo modprobe -r firewire_core
> [rocketmouse@email-addr-hidden ~]$ sudo modprobe -r ppdev; sudo modprobe -r lp
> [rocketmouse@email-addr-hidden ~]$ cd /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ohci-pci
> [rocketmouse@email-addr-hidden ohci-pci]$ printf "0000:00:13.2" | sudo tee unbind >/dev/null
> [rocketmouse@email-addr-hidden ohci-pci]$ printf "0000:00:13.4" | sudo tee unbind >/dev/null
> [rocketmouse@email-addr-hidden ohci-pci]$ rtirq status
>
> PID CLS RTPRIO NI PRI %CPU STAT COMMAND
> 126 FF 90 - 130 0.2 S irq/19-ehci_hcd
> 130 FF 90 - 130 0.0 S irq/16-ohci_hcd
> 152 FF 89 - 129 0.0 S irq/17-ohci_hcd
> 155 FF 88 - 128 0.0 S irq/17-ohci_hcd
> 274 FF 85 - 125 0.0 S irq/18-snd_hdsp
> 32 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/9-acpi
> 48 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/8-rtc0
> 78 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/26-radeon
> 115 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/1-i8042
> 132 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/22-ahci[000
> 261 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/7-parport0
> 436 FF 50 - 90 0.0 S irq/27-enp3s0
> 3 TS - 0 19 0.0 S ksoftirqd/0
> 17 TS - 0 19 0.0 S ksoftirqd/1
>
> The Presonus and Focusrite cost < 400 EUR, alternatively there are just
> 2 Behringer for < 300 EUR and 1 RME for > 600 EUR.
>
> I don't test the Behringer devices, because I read customer reviews
> mentioning power supply failures for one of those devices and I had to
> replace caps of my Behringer mixer's switching power supply and the
> power supply of my ADA8000 gets boiling hot. I guess the only reason
> that the ADA's power supply didn't break is, that I rarely used it.
> Apart from this I had to clean all knobs of my Behringer mixing
> console. I'm living close to a main street and dirt is a serious issue,
> however, all of my gear suffers from the same dirt, but just the
> Behringer mixer needed a radical cleaning in a shorter space of time.
>
> The RME is too expensive. If all ADAT channels of my RME HDSPe AIO of
> my Linux PC would work, I would buy and test the RME USB audio
> interface, but because they don't, there's a Linux driver issue or I'm
> to stupid to understand how to use it, I need to buy two devices, one
> for the iPad and a second for the Linux PC, so the RME interface is too
> expensive for me at the moment.
>
> I continue testing the Focusrite now, assuming there should be no
> additional issues, at least no issues for the iPad, I'll stay with the
> Focusrite and use it for MIDI and ADAT. I still need to test the
> analog inputs, perhaps they are usable. I also will call my dealer, too
> ensure that the output sound isn't bad, because something is broken.
>
> The analog outputs of the RME HDSPe AIO and the Behringer ADA8000 do not
> sound that bad, so it's not some technical issue with my PC, mixer, amp
> or ears. The culprits are the analog outputs of the Focusrite. My two
> TerraTec EWX 24/96 cards aren't mounted, but I'm sure that even those
> cards don't sound that bad, especially since even my cheap hifi CD
> player does sound better, than the Focusrite. The headphone amp of the
> Presonus wasn't very good, but it didn't colour the sound that much and
> unfavourable as the Focusrite does. Unfortunately I didn't test the
> sound quality of the Presonus outputs.
>
> Regards,
> Ralf
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>

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