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Old 05-19-2009, 12:30 AM   #1
pipelineaudio
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Default Jim Roseberry Saffire + Ideal Driver?

The, I think, BeBOB saffire pro 26's are going for peanuts now. They are on the list for the CEntrance ideal driver. This seems like a major bang for the buck combo here in the layout that I am always looking for: 8 analog +16 adat.

Anything wrong with this route?
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Old 05-19-2009, 03:37 AM   #2
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Pipe

My saffire has a very nasty clock-related problem, where after working for a while, the card will become un-sync'd to itself, resulting in the audio breaking up and then stalling completely. Only re-setting the sample rate on the saffire control panel fixes. Not very nice when you've got to perform under pressure.....

otherwise, it's a fine card.
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Old 05-19-2009, 03:44 AM   #3
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Have you tried the Ideal Driver on it?
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Old 05-19-2009, 02:12 PM   #4
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I don't think the Saffire 26 works with the ideal driver, just "regular" Saffire. The Saffire 26 is based on the Dice II.
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Old 05-19-2009, 03:40 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jonmatifa View Post
I don't think the Saffire 26 works with the ideal driver, just "regular" Saffire. The Saffire 26 is based on the Dice II.
Are you sure? I thought the new saffires were dice 2 not the old ones
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Old 05-19-2009, 04:28 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jonmatifa View Post
I don't think the Saffire 26 works with the ideal driver, just "regular" Saffire. The Saffire 26 is based on the Dice II.
I'm having a bit of difficulty confirming this as well, a search gives conflicting reports. Doesn't the Saffire have the BridgeCo chip or am I confused?

Anybody with concrete info please chime in...
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Old 05-19-2009, 05:38 PM   #7
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I thought I had read that somewhere, now I don't see anything relating to that... so I might be wrong.
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Old 05-19-2009, 05:45 PM   #8
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...shit dude! Don't scare me like that!
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Old 05-19-2009, 06:47 PM   #9
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Have any of you seen a drastic improvement using this driver with a Saffire versus Focusrite's own? Their forums are a little light on testimonials, and I'm already getting 5-6ms with OEM drivers....

I've had few problems with this guy, probably due to a decent firewire card.
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Old 05-19-2009, 07:01 PM   #10
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Quote:
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... I've had few problems with this guy, probably due to a decent firewire card.
Please elaborate?
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Old 05-19-2009, 07:08 PM   #11
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Please elaborate?
Sorry; by few, I mean nearly zero problems. Once in a while when I set the buffer size too low, I have to power cycle it.
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Old 05-19-2009, 08:04 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by themensch View Post
Have any of you seen a drastic improvement using this driver with a Saffire versus Focusrite's own? Their forums are a little light on testimonials, and I'm already getting 5-6ms with OEM drivers....

I've had few problems with this guy, probably due to a decent firewire card.
What are you getting according to centrance LTU at 256 buffers with no hardware monitoring?
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Old 05-19-2009, 08:46 PM   #13
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Quote:
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What are you getting according to centrance LTU at 256 buffers with no hardware monitoring?
Would love to set up that test but....not now. Hopefully you've had some experience with this driver and can attest to its seeming awesomeness?
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Old 05-20-2009, 06:56 AM   #14
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I guess what I'm looking for here is a testimonial from someone other than the manufacturer or random lunkheads I find via google. Forgive my jaded, net-savvy paranoia, but I don't exactly expect companies making testing tools to sell their products to be on the level. I'm sure Toyota would be happy to sell me a "special dongle" that shows that Toyotas get better gas mileage than a Ford, for example - especially when the Toyota dealer could just drop a bag of cement in the trunk of the Ford and I'd never know....
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Old 05-20-2009, 07:21 AM   #15
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you are certainly smart to be skeptical. Hopefully theres some LTU tests some where
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Old 05-20-2009, 07:27 AM   #16
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I've tested some other parts of the system - but not this specific round trip. I will run this test when time affords, but I am interested in other success stories.
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Old 05-20-2009, 09:11 AM   #17
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As far as I'm aware, the LTU test utility works as advertised and accurately represents the total round-trip latency through the DUT (Device Under Test).

Scott
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Old 05-20-2009, 09:13 AM   #18
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I don't see the Saffire Pro26 on the CEntrance compatibility list although it is a Bridgeco based unit. The Pro26 feels like a good concept that was never quite finished as there are a few little niggles like the loud pops when you change sample rate.

I've had mine set to 2mS in and out with no problems with the original drivers although I tend to use it at the default of 6mS for any serious live recording where latency doesn't matter. I've done continuous 16 track recordings of nearly an hour with no glitches.

Cheers

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Old 05-20-2009, 10:12 AM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sstillwell View Post
As far as I'm aware, the LTU test utility works as advertised and accurately represents the total round-trip latency through the DUT (Device Under Test).

Scott

Thanks Scott, I'll run the test if/when I can get a break when I get home.

Man, I haven't heard DUT since my days in an IC fab.

I'm with James - I've had great luck with the latency on native drivers, and I'm wondering if we're talking apples and oranges here - I don't think I've ever done an end-to-end test of latency, and instead relied upon Reaper/Reason to report latency correctly.
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Old 05-20-2009, 01:04 PM   #20
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Reaper just accepts the word of whatever the ASIO drivers tell it. That may or may not include AD/DA conversion times or safety buffers...which the LTU DOES include.

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Old 05-20-2009, 02:44 PM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sstillwell View Post
Reaper just accepts the word of whatever the ASIO drivers tell it. That may or may not include AD/DA conversion times or safety buffers...which the LTU DOES include.

Scott
Perfect. I knew there had to be some difference in definition of this common nomenclature in this instance!
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Old 05-20-2009, 06:15 PM   #22
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remember to disable any hardware monitoring or the LTU numbers will be weird
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Old 05-20-2009, 06:15 PM   #23
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Results:

Focusrite Saffire ASIO Control Panel Says:
ASIO Buffer Size: 2.0ms
Firewire Buffer Size: 1.0ms
Input Latency: 3.6ms
Output Latency: 5.5ms (this is what is reported by the soundcard)

Centrance says:
88 samples @ 44.1k
Measurement results: 475 samples / 10.77 ms
192 samples @96k:
Measurement results: 924 samples / 9.63 ms
(soundcard has a setting for 192K, but it sure doesn't want to work at that rate.)
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Old 05-20-2009, 06:43 PM   #24
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Thanks for taking the time to do that mensch, I took the plunge last nite & ordered one. I'm really hoping I like it, after a few searches I don't recall ever seeing an interface with such a dynamic range of reviews (Hamony Central avg 2.5!)

@Pipe - thanks for the heads-up!
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Old 05-20-2009, 06:48 PM   #25
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dont blame me if this goes wrong

We still havent heard from Jim

Im gonna make a sticky here for LTU tests in a bit. I have some data to contribute, hopefully we all can
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Old 05-20-2009, 06:51 PM   #26
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Syd Masters View Post
Thanks for taking the time to do that mensch, I took the plunge last nite & ordered one. I'm really hoping I like it, after a few searches I don't recall ever seeing an interface with such a dynamic range of reviews (Hamony Central avg 2.5!)
I like it, it's solid with a good siig firewire card with a ti chipset. I've had problems if it's not the only device on the bus, and it sure didn't like the onboard firewire in the dell d630.


I know it's old, but I do like how it sounds.
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Old 05-20-2009, 06:52 PM   #27
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heh, no worries, if it's bogus I'll just blame myself as usual Actually my bro has brought over his regular Saffire and it's been very agreeable on my system (the Mac partition anyway) so I'm uncharacteristically optimistic
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Old 05-21-2009, 08:05 AM   #28
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pipelineaudio View Post
Im gonna make a sticky here for LTU tests in a bit. I have some data to contribute, hopefully we all can
I'll get some data for this guy that conforms to the test standards and post it later.
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Old 05-25-2009, 12:45 PM   #29
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Saffire Pro 26 arrived on Friday of course when I was working a double shift (had Thursday off entirely) barely able to plug it in & test out minimal functionality on Fri. Sick on Sat...WTF!!! Finally Sunday gave me some time to play around. I'm really liking this thing!

So far it's playing very well with my on-board FW (IP35 Pro w/TI). The preamps are very nice & for $400 worth it right there. With the ADAT out you could just use it as an 8 channel preamp unit if you wanted.

One pleasant surprise was that the instrument switch on the first 2 channels ended up being too much gain for my active basses. Consequently they worked perfectly on all 8 channels direct thru the line-in with headroom to spare. Have yet to check this with DI-guitar or passive bass.

My only complaint so far is the complete apparent lack of metering on the unit itself & the control software (The only indicator being a clipping light for each channel). Not a huge deal as you can always see what's going on the DAW, but kinda silly & a PITA. Makes no sense especially as you're looking at the control panel with it's input faders but no meters? Ah well, seems like they could fix it in a driver update but now that it's been discontinued this is probably unlikely.

When I get a little more time, I'll post some LTU readings as well.
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