[Artguy]

Here is a link to Motu's site regarding their external ADC/ DAC unit powered by firewire.

http://www.motu.com/products/motuaud...lite/body.html

I am using my Mac G5 as source, and thought that this might be a nice unit to combine DAC duties for Lossless files playing from my hard drive, as well as occaisional recording of audio as well (not a high priority, but still nice). What I am wondering is what all you experts in Audio think of the specs of this unit, to be used as a DAC feeding my Woo Audio 3 Headphone amp, or even using the headphone jacks straight out of the firewire port of my portable when I travel? I am using an AKG 701 headphones which work really nicely with the Woo as amp. Pulling power for the DAC from my portable's firewire port is a great feature I think.

Many of the other DACs with USB are at least this expensive or much more, and I have an idea that this might really sound great with my system.

All responses are appreciated, but please stay on topic, and dont turn this into a flame-war of Mac vs PC. I would prefer responses from those who have experience with both high-end DACs as well as the Motu products, such as the Ultralight or the Traveller.

Thanks in Advance.

 

[AngusMcToon]

I have an Ultralite, which is primarily a recording interface for the computer...it has 8x8 IOs, including 2 balanced inputs with mic pres, SPDIF, and a standalone mixer...and it comes with Motu's recording apps and a mixer console applet for OSX.

It's fundamentally a recording interface used by project studioists. I use this interface connected to studio monitors, and it has great features for home recording. To me, the converters sound good, though I think the converters on the Emu devices (0404 e.g.) might be a bit more highly regarded -- certainly the converters on my old interface, the Emu 1820m, sounded pretty spectacular.

In any case, I find it a pretty foreign idea to use this interface as a dac if you're not otherwise using it for recording applications. You probably could, and the sound will be solidly midrange audiophile, but if you really want a DAC, I'm not sure you mightn't better like a good dedicated DAC or the Emu unit, which has a lot less recording apparatus? You're paying for a number of features you might not need?

On the other hand, if you do have need to record on occasion -- I think the Ultralite kicks bootay in the project studio...very decent pres, solid performance on mac at least, good sound, a bit smaller still than the Traveller (but by no means portable).

 

[P.J]

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