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View Full Version : Anyone try the TASCAM US-1641 ?



Warren
04-09-2008, 01:08 PM
Has anyone tried one of these unit?

I wonder how they standup compared to the ADA8000.
It looks as there 96khz/24 ADDA with all channels driven USB 2
Don't know how they sound though.
MSRP $499.00
The down side is they only have 4 outs

Might be great for SAC at 96khz

Jazzyrick
05-26-2009, 10:10 PM
Bump...

I just saw one of these units myself and am looking to possibly jump into the digital realm of mixing. From what I've read here so far the firewire interfaces don't seem to be up to the task. What about usb 2.0?

Would it be possible to use multiples of these units.

With USB 2.0 you could run these strait from a laptop or a pc practically unmodified...

IraSeigel
05-26-2009, 10:56 PM
I can't find anything about a price for the soon-to-be-released RME Fireface UC (USB, not Firewire), but if you can wait a little while longer, the word is that RME will be releasing it in June. (It's already available in very limited quantities in Germany, apparently.)

I would suggest that RME's pre's and overall quality is a level up from Tascam.

Ira

Jazzyrick
05-27-2009, 02:10 AM
Along with RMEs price.

I think it's been mentioned before, and I tend to agree, that in a live performance there aren't but a handful of people that will notice the difference between a $50 mic pre and a $5000 mic pre. In a controlled recording environment...absolutely...in a bar with 250 drunk people having a good time, or a club with 700 people and a concrete floor, ceiling, and walls...not a chance.

I live in the live audio realm for the most part, and have seen engineers ruin a $500,000 rig with the turn of a few knobs, and I've seen pros come into a rickety old club with a Behringer mixer with 3 channels out, a phonic 31 band EQ, and no comps/gates/effects and still make it sound pretty decent.

My question was about the Tascam, but also more generically would a USB interface work as well as ADAT?

Bob L
05-27-2009, 04:58 AM
Past experience has demonstrated that Tascam drivers can be troublesome at best... in the world of SAC, stability and low latency performance without glitches is of utmost importance.

The driver design is probably the most important factor, and Tascam has very rarely ever measured up... the mention of RME is more about drivers and less about mic pres, in my opinion.

I have not attempted usb drivers recently for multichannel low latency operation, so I can only base my opinion on past examples... and I have never found useful operation in that regard.

For SAC... I highly recommend internal soundcards for desktop machines, bus cards for laptops... firewire would be my last resort... and usb would not be considered... just my two cents. :)

Bob L

IraSeigel
05-27-2009, 08:54 AM
Along with RMEs price.

I think it's been mentioned before, and I tend to agree, that in a live performance there aren't but a handful of people that will notice the difference between a $50 mic pre and a $5000 mic pre. In a controlled recording environment...absolutely...in a bar with 250 drunk people having a good time, or a club with 700 people and a concrete floor, ceiling, and walls...not a chance.

I live in the live audio realm for the most part, and have seen engineers ruin a $500,000 rig with the turn of a few knobs, and I've seen pros come into a rickety old club with a Behringer mixer with 3 channels out, a phonic 31 band EQ, and no comps/gates/effects and still make it sound pretty decent.

My question was about the Tascam, but also more generically would a USB interface work as well as ADAT?

I live in the live audio realm, as well. And as Bob mentioned just previously, and to paraphrase an illustrious former president, "It's the drivers, stupid".

I've used the Tascam units for SMAART interface, as others do. For mixing? I don't think so.

I suggested you wait and look at the RME unit because their drivers are top-notch. If anyone could bring live mixing capability to USB devices, I think that RME could.

Just my opinion.
Good luck,
Ira

Warren
05-27-2009, 11:39 AM
Thanks Bob, for the heads up on Tascam drivers I was not aware they had issues. The only Tascam gear I have is two of the MX2424's

Chris

Bob L
05-27-2009, 12:40 PM
The new stuff may be better... and even awesome... I don't know... the previous stuff I tested a few years back was pretty weak.

Bob L

Scott Martinez
11-19-2009, 11:17 AM
I just wanted to follow up this and see if I the US-1641 with SAC and a dual core would make for a nice little 16 channel high school theater setup. I would need about 12 to 14 inputs for wireless mics. I would use some external mic pre's since the 1641 only has 8 and probably sub mix the band. I would need a mono out to the house and maybe two more outputs to monitors. I would like the use SAW for scene muting but also take advantage for the EQ and dynamics.

Thanks for any info if you have used this type of setup.

-Scott

Trackzilla
11-19-2009, 01:33 PM
So far no one has reported testing that Tascam unit with SAC.
Based on known performance of most Tascam units and most USB products (RME apparently being the exception) I would not recommend it unless you already have one available to test.

All USB audio interfaces tested & reported here so far except the new RME unit have unacceptable performance...as in, they can, will, and DO give noticeably glitchy or completely unusable audio with SAC. The problem does not lie within SAC, so it is unlikely to change soon ;)

If you already have the Tascam, by all means try it & report if it works. But I would strongly recommend a non-USB device...anything else is better really!

Desktop:
PCI = best
Firewire = OK for limited channel count
USB = bad except for RME unit

Laptop:
Expresscard = best
older cardbus = good, but some brands fail with some laptop models
Firewire = OK for limited channel count
USB = bad except for RME unit

DominicPerry
11-19-2009, 02:46 PM
Rule 1. Buy RME.
Rule 2. Buy RME.

etc

Dominic

Brent Evans
11-19-2009, 02:50 PM
Rule 1. Buy RME.
Rule 2. Buy RME.


I like RME too, it works great! I can also get darn close to usable latency glitch-free on my laptop sound card with ASIO4ALL (it will do 1x512). There's got to be something out there at some point that would fit the bill for an inexpensive small rig.

If the Tascam works, it really would be great. If I had the time, I'd haul my rig to GC or SamAsh and test it. May actually do that too... it would be worth it for me personally to have a small rig.

gdougherty
11-19-2009, 04:16 PM
On the Firewire/USB front. Firewire is a much more reliable connection in terms of data throughput and low overhead (not really so much the connectors). When you look at pro level video and data connections, they typically go firewire even over the slightly faster theoretical USB.

I've run a 16 channel setup on my M-Audio Profire 2626 and with a decent computer with a good Ti firewire chipset it does very well. If you're looking for a decent interface I'd recommend it, especially at $550 with 8 quality preamps, 8 balanced outs built-in and expansion for another 16 channels of i/o. Plugged into my desktop rather than my laptop it literally ran all day at 2x64 with no major glitches. That's as low latency as I'm willing to push my RME card because of the huge hit in CPU load I take when I switch from 64 sample buffers down to 32 and I'm following Bob's advice about 2 buffers being more reliable than 1.

gdougherty
11-19-2009, 04:22 PM
On the Firewire/USB front. Firewire is a much more reliable connection in terms of data throughput and low overhead (not really so much the connectors). When you look at pro level video and data connections, they typically go firewire even over the slightly faster theoretical USB.

I've run a 16 channel setup on my M-Audio Profire 2626 and with a decent computer with a good Ti firewire chipset it does very well. If you're looking for a decent interface I'd recommend it, especially at $550 with 8 quality preamps, 8 balanced outs built-in and expansion for another 16 channels of i/o. Plugged into my desktop rather than my laptop it literally ran all day at 2x64 with no major glitches. That's as low latency as I'm willing to push my RME card because of the huge hit in CPU load I take when I switch from 64 sample buffers down to 32 and I'm following Bob's advice about 2 buffers being more reliable than 1.

http://www.compuplus.com/i-M-Audio-ProFire-2626-High-Definition-26-in26-out-FireWire-Audio-Interface-with-Octane-Preamp-Technology-9900-52397-00-1029761~.html
$500. Considering it's expandability and my positive experience with their online support and drivers, I'd gladly recommend it. I also liked that it had two headphone preamps built into it. The internal software routing is very extensive and was one of the reasons I loved it so much. I've been using it as my 1st 8 channels of preamp in my rack rig and it's been absolutely solid as a standalone as well. Bonus, all the preamp inputs are on the back of the unit.

Scott Martinez
11-19-2009, 04:43 PM
Thanks for the info. It looks like the 9652 and ADA8000's is the way to go. The 9652 is out of my budget for the time being. I'll download a demo of SAC and if the return policy at the local music store allows for returns, I'll give it a shot and get back to you. It looks like I will at the minimum, give up expandability in the short term if the SAC/1641 combo works.

Thanks,
Scott

DominicPerry
11-19-2009, 04:44 PM
There's got to be something out there at some point that would fit the bill for an inexpensive small rig.


Not necessarily. :D Just because you wish something to be true doesn't make it so (despite the continuous barage of such nonsense from self-help gurus and the like). :)

You can experiment if you have the time and money. But so far, it's always ended up costing time and money and the answer is still - pay a little more and buy RME, and then get on with the job.

Dominic

gdougherty
11-19-2009, 06:00 PM
I like RME too, it works great! I can also get darn close to usable latency glitch-free on my laptop sound card with ASIO4ALL (it will do 1x512). There's got to be something out there at some point that would fit the bill for an inexpensive small rig.

If the Tascam works, it really would be great. If I had the time, I'd haul my rig to GC or SamAsh and test it. May actually do that too... it would be worth it for me personally to have a small rig.

I'm expecting delivery of another pair of ADA800's Friday. Once they arrive I'll have 16 channels of ADA8000 in the mix rack and a separate SKB rack with another 16 channels of ADA8000 plus my Profire. The SKB rack then is either a 16 channel "expansion" for the RayDAT based rackmount rig, or doubles as a 24 channel portable rig in conjunction with my laptop that packs easily in my sedan. Someday I'll upgrade the laptop to something with a faster CPU and an Expresscard/34 slot so my Firewire card is more secure. I guess by the time you get into a laptop, interface, rack and 2 ADA8000's it's still not really "inexpensive", but it's still better on price and more portable than anything comparable. We've already had all the discussions on SAC's interface and flexibility over entry level portable Yamaha stuff.

Scott Martinez
11-19-2009, 10:47 PM
http://www.compuplus.com/i-M-Audio-ProFire-2626-High-Definition-26-in26-out-FireWire-Audio-Interface-with-Octane-Preamp-Technology-9900-52397-00-1029761~.html
$500. Considering it's expandability and my positive experience with their online support and drivers, I'd gladly recommend it. I also liked that it had two headphone preamps built into it. The internal software routing is very extensive and was one of the reasons I loved it so much. I've been using it as my 1st 8 channels of preamp in my rack rig and it's been absolutely solid as a standalone as well. Bonus, all the preamp inputs are on the back of the unit.

That looks like a very cool box. I am going to rent an LS9 or possibly buy a used 02R for the next gig and put more thought into this. Maybe I can use the 02R as a bcf2000 after I put a system together!

Thanks,
Scott

gdougherty
11-21-2009, 10:44 AM
That looks like a very cool box. I am going to rent an LS9 or possibly buy a used 02R for the next gig and put more thought into this. Maybe I can use the 02R as a bcf2000 after I put a system together!

Thanks,
Scott

I'd rent before I'd buy something unless you can get a steal and turn it around for the same amount or better. An 02R is a lot to haul around for just a control surface. I've been happy with the ProFire, though it's not expanable like the RME stuff is to multiple interfaces if you're using the internal cards in a rackmount system. If 24 channels is all you need and you're willing to live with Firewire it's quite nice and the Octane Preamps are supposedly very decent; I like them for sure. Except for the inline brick power supply, I wouldn't mind having a rack of those instead of the ADA's.

905shmick
02-24-2010, 09:54 PM
Tried out a friends Tascam US-1641 tonight with SAC. Using asio with the tascam drivers was pretty bad. At 2x64 audio would pass for a minute or so, then fade out with large amounts static then nothing. Moving to 2x128 the audio passed for a few minutes and then the same static fade out.

We then tried asio4all and had things running at 2x64 without a hitch for a solid 25 minutes and no slipped buffers. We stopped the test at 25 mins.

The test only used 1 mono input and 1 of the 2 stereo outs on the US-1641.

The asio4all settings we used are.

asio4all v2.10 Beta 1
Latency Compensation: In & Out - 32 Samples
ASIO Buffer Size = 64 samples
The other 3 boxes remained unchecked.

DaveS
02-25-2010, 09:29 AM
+1 on the ProFire. Just got mine last week and have been putting it thru it's paces and it has been rock solid.

I would love to try out an ExpressCard based RME system but I think the ExpressCard system on my laptop was designed 'broken' - I've not been able to find a firewire card that would work with it. Oddly enough the internal FW system works good with the M-Audio stuff...not so much for the MOTU Traveler (got occasional clicks and pops that I was never able to track down.)

sjpaul
02-25-2010, 07:08 PM
For those interested, I have a small portable 16 channel (plus s/pdif winamp loopback) rig running using a Phonic Firefly 808 firewire interface plus 1 ADA8000. The Phonic drivers are pretty ropey though, and I'm using ASIO4ALL instead. I've had to link the interface and ADA with a word clock cable too.... they wouldn't play nice using just ADAT. FWIW, I'm only using this because I already owned it. If I was buying specifically, I'd probably opt for the M-Audio Profire 2626.

This runs from a 4u ABS case and a laptop on top.