by Engineer & Producer John Paterno

Over the last few months, a few new converters have come out. I thought it would be a good time to gather up a few things and give them a listen. So, between myself and my friend Joe Barresi we were able to gather up a 192, a Lynx Aurora, a new Avid I/O, and a Symphony I/O. We did the test about a week and a half ago.

Joe and I spoke a few times about how best to do it. We wanted to hear each unit on its own merit – using its own internal clock. We were able to gather three Pro Tools rigs together to do this. Joe fortunately had a free day, so we did this at his studio. We were trying to minimize anything that would influence the test, so our audio sources were patched directly into the inputs of the converters via mults, and we monitored two outputs of each through Joe’s SSL’s 2 track returns.

The Symphony, the Avid, and a 192 were set up first, because we were most familiar with the 192 and it was a good way to hear how the technology has changed with the newest Avid and Apogee converters. We turned on an oscillator and calibrated the ins and the outs so that we knew the levels were matched. Then we played some stereo audio references first – comparing the source output to the input/output of each converter [ie, Pro Tools on Input]. We also recorded electric guitar using a 1073 mic pre into each one [mic>1073>sidecar bus1&2 outs>inputs 1&2 on each converter]. The only hard part of the test was hitting the space bar on three rigs at the same time!! [I found out later that we could have linked all the machines via Ethernet to get them started – next time…

Speaking for myself, it was interesting to hear the differences. The Avid was very good, and it made a lot of sense comparing to the source material in tone, depth, and imaging. Definitely a ‘next generation’ kind of thing.

The Symphony was the most surprising based on my expectations. The first thing that struck me was the low end, and how big and defined it was. When the low end is big, imaging and clarity can be compromised sometimes. This was not the case here at all. The Symphony sounded 3-D and clear. It seemed really even across the mids and upper mids as well, and the ‘space’ and reverb decays all made sense.

The first thing that struck me was the low end, and how big and defined it was.

We went on to replace the 192 with the Aurora, so we could hear that as well. We did our comparison to source again, plus we recorded drums [4 mics combined to two channels via a Neve sidecar] and acoustic guitar. For me the results were similar, with the Aurora sounding good but not quite with the dimension of the other two.

The next day, I did one other experiment. I printed a mix I was doing in Pro Tools [using hardware inserts on the stereo bus and on the lead vocal insert] via my normal 192. Then I swapped out the 192 for Symphony I/O and did the same print. I burned a CD and played them back to back. The listening results confirmed my observations above.

I gave the CD to my girlfriend and asked her which one she liked better, and she picked the Symphony…

John Paterno’s credits include Robbie Williams, Eros Ramazzotti, and Badly Drawn Boy.
You can learn more by visiting his website at www.jpreceng.com.