InterFace Off (Audient ID22 vs Presonus Quantum 2)

  • Thread starter Gnarcade
  • Start date
  • This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links like Ebay, Amazon, and others.

Gnarcade

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2018
Messages
68
Reaction score
86
Location
Minneapolis
(Preface: Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to make sure I gave as much info as might be needed to be helpful)

I am very excited to have just purchased a new PC! I've been using an old laptop to record and mix for a long time, so this is going to be a huge leap forward for me. Excited to have an i7, 16GB ram, SSD, and Thunderbolt.

I figure its also time to upgrade the trusty ol' Mbox 2, particularly now that I will have a thunderbolt port. I've done a fair amount of research, and I think I have narrowed it down to two options:

- Presonus Quantum 2 22x24
- Audient iD22

Deciding between the two is where I am struggling. This is where I would love to hear some opinions from those of you with experience, or a deeper overall knowledge base of the technical aspects of these things. The Quantum has thunderbolt which of course is exciting, but its fairly new and there isn't a ton of experienced info out there yet. Meanwhile the Audient has a ton of great reviews, particularly about its preamps, AD/DA, and DI, but it is only USB 2.0 and doesnt have MIDI I/O. Even with all my research, I don't know if i'm confident in choosing one over the other at this point. Do I really gain enough from thunderbolt to make an argument for not going with the tried and true ID22?

This setup is mainly for demoing songs for my bands, or recording my solo chiptune/punk stuff. Its almost all DI aside from the occasional Mic for an acoustic. I run Reaper and Reason 10. Here's a little about my gear and how I record:

Guitar
- Hughes and Kettner Tubemeister 5 direct into the interface and through Two Notes WOS
- Direct In and Amp Sims (Amplitube 4 at the moment but interested in trying Helix Native)

Bass
- I use an Aguilar tone hammer direct into the interface and through Two Notes WOS

Synths (This is where not having MIDI I/O on the Audient is a bummer, but i could always suppliment with a midi specific interface)
- Modified Gameboys direct into the interface
- Nintendo DS 1/8th Inch out direct into the interface (Using Korg DS-10)

Opinions? Thoughts? Ideas? Any other interfaces I should look at that I may have missed or too quickly dismissed? Thanks ahead of time for your input and contributions!
 

Descent

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 7, 2014
Messages
1,594
Reaction score
603
Location
Houston, TX
Depends on channel count, if recording just a few channels at a time USB is usually fine. Audient is the better DI and preamp for sure.
 

Gnarcade

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2018
Messages
68
Reaction score
86
Location
Minneapolis
Yeah I rarely record more than two channels at a time, so maybe I'll be just fine. In fact, most of the time I'm writing, so I'm just playing guitar straight into the interface and using WOS or a VST. So I suppose the big question with that is Latency. I'll fully admit that despite all my research, I just don't feel like I fully understand what contributes/detracts to latency, and have read so many conflicting opinions as to whether USB vs Thunderbolt lead to a considerable difference in latency. I also have read some reviews that indicate the Audient stuff isn't great in terms of latency, which gives me a bit of pause as well.
 

This site may earn a commission from merchant links like Ebay, Amazon, and others.

Synllip

Cyan
Joined
Jun 2, 2018
Messages
102
Reaction score
56
CPU and Hard drive type is very important to latency since the better these components the less buffer size you can have thus giving you a lower latency. Thunderbolt is supposed to help with lower latency but it doesn't go far from USB.
I personally don't think it's worth going for Thunderbolt in this case since the Audient offers more versatility and features that you can benefit from.
 

Gnarcade

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2018
Messages
68
Reaction score
86
Location
Minneapolis
Awesome, thank you Synllip that differentiation is exactly what I needed to know. I did some more reading last night and I think I am finally understanding that thunderbolt does more to help with bandwidth than latency necessarily. A huge thank you to you and Descent for your opinions! I am definitely leaning toward the iD22 at this point.
 

Descent

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 7, 2014
Messages
1,594
Reaction score
603
Location
Houston, TX
Thunderbolt, Firewire, and PCI/PCIe cards are usually better in terms of throughput and latency because the USB port is generic. I am still using firewire (yeah about to be absolutely phased out) on some of my systems and it is better in terms of latency because it is the only thing going on the bus.

Considering that we're talking so little in terms of inputs, I think you should be fine. Make sure you get from a store with return policy just in case, with the digital audio stuff you never know, especially Windows machines as they could have a varying parts/drivers.
 

DickyTripleD

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2017
Messages
84
Reaction score
80
Ive been having a tough time choosing between the Audient and UAD Arrow. Just can't decide if the free UAD plugins are underwhelming for the price of the interface, and the price of extra plugins.
 

Elric

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2013
Messages
1,101
Reaction score
459
Location
Austin, TX
Quantum 2 is awesome. IMHO. When I was shopping interfaces last month it was Q2, Apogee, or UAD Apollo; I wasn’t looking at the Audient though, so I never compared them. Have a friend who is more experienced than me with studio stuff (he’s a pro, I’m a hobbyist) and he had used the Presonus and recommended the Q2 highly, saying it was really top shelf audio quality even though some people put Apogee, etc, above them... and it had the best real-world latency performance of any interface he had ever seen on the market.

It was a great choice for me and my needs. The I/O is super expandableI want for some controllers I have for example.

It is going to be the cornerstone of my home studio for a very long time, I think.

Hope this helps!
 

Gnarcade

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2018
Messages
68
Reaction score
86
Location
Minneapolis
he had used the Presonus and recommended the Q2 highly, saying it was really top shelf audio quality even though some people put Apogee, etc, above them... and it had the best real-world latency performance of any interface he had ever seen on the market.

This is tremendously helpful, I always appreciate the opinion of people who do this for a living.

I do have another question for you if you don't mind. I have thunderbolt 3 ports on my computer, but i know the Quantum is thunderbolt 2. Do you have this same challenge, and if so what sort of converter from T bolt 3 to 2 might you recommend?

Ive been having a tough time choosing between the Audient and UAD Arrow. Just can't decide if the free UAD plugins are underwhelming for the price of the interface, and the price of extra plugins.

I am right there with you. I looked into the Arrow and honestly i keep coming back to it as an option... I just cant get a good sense of whether its worth it to accept so little in terms of I/O as a trade for the UAD plugins and a teeny bit of external processing power.

I've come to realize that buying an audio interface at this mid-level pricing tier is actually pretty difficult. The difference in offerings from the various companies are quite different, and you end up giving up alot to go in one direction vs another. Everyone's computing system is so different, so trusting individual opinions is hard. Plus to make things worse, you cant simply try them out like you could a guitar or an amplifier.
 

Gnarcade

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2018
Messages
68
Reaction score
86
Location
Minneapolis
Not to beat this thread like a dead horse, but I finally made a decision, and it's going to appear to completely come from left field... the UAD Arrow is on its way! So the obvious question is "what the hell, why?" I thought I might detail a little of what tipped the scales, in hopes it helps someone else in the future making a similar decision. Hell, I know I read tons of similar threads while doing my own research. Here are my final reasons for picking the UAD:

1. Re-Evaluating my usage - I took a good hard look at what I actually use an audio interface for, and at the end of the day I just don't ever see myself using more than one input at a time. I'm a guitar player writing demos for my bands, and recording goofy video game music for fun. As awesome as it would be to have a big, shiny interface with tons of functionality, I simply don't need it.

2. Bus Power - The more I started to think about traveling for work and taking the Arrow with me, the more valuable portability became. Plus its going to be nice to not have to plug in ANOTHER wall wart at home, inching me one step closer to a Clark Griswald style electrical nightmare.

3. Cost - Yes, for a couple hundred more I could get the Quantum 2... but I found myself playing that game a lot, and it got me focused on more expensive units with options and functionality that I just simply don't need. "Oh damn, having a couple ins and outs would be cool if I ever want to get like an external compressor or something..." I am never going to do that. I barely know how to effectively use the simple VST Compressors I have at this point. I reminded myself that this is simply a small component of making music, and I don't want to be distracted by feelings of "sunk cost" that might leave me feeling I need to find ways to justify having bought higher end equipment. That might not matter for everyone, but it's something I know can happen for me.

4. Model Age - This is a big part of why I did not go with the iD22, the Arrow is only about a year old at this point, compared with the 5 years or so that the 22 has under its belt. My hope is to get a lot more runway out of the Arrow given its youth and the fact that it uses thunderbolt. Might be a logical fallacy on my part, but its a psychological factor that I found gave me comfort.

So there you have it! Is this post just a veiled way for me to justify my purchase under the guise that outlining my decision making will help others? Probably... but oh well, I cant wait for the unit to get here!
 

DickyTripleD

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 13, 2017
Messages
84
Reaction score
80
3. Cost - Yes, for a couple hundred more I could get the Quantum 2... but I found myself playing that game a lot, and it got me focused on more expensive units with options and functionality that I just simply don't need. "Oh damn, having a couple ins and outs would be cool if I ever want to get like an external compressor or something..." I am never going to do that. I barely know how to effectively use the simple VST Compressors I have at this point. I reminded myself that this is simply a small component of making music, and I don't want to be distracted by feelings of "sunk cost" that might leave me feeling I need to find ways to justify having bought higher end equipment. That might not matter for everyone, but it's something I know can happen for me.

The early Ola videos are a perfect example of simple setup + high end equipment will always equate to usable results. So many people should spend more time practicing than worrying about what Neve just released. Lol.
 

Descent

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 7, 2014
Messages
1,594
Reaction score
603
Location
Houston, TX
You said you write demos for your bands, so you never track them? Do you go to a studio or?

Reason I am asking as I am in the same boat. I used to do more audio production, tracking full kit, etc. but for the last EP we went to a local studio to cut drums.

Only thing I might need more than one input is that I have a multimic setup (2 or 3) on my guitar rig for recording, so I need the extra inputs.


Probably better to go with Thunderbolt in the end as it will have less latency although at so few channels probably won't matter.
 

Gnarcade

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 7, 2018
Messages
68
Reaction score
86
Location
Minneapolis
The early Ola videos are a perfect example of simple setup + high end equipment will always equate to usable results. So many people should spend more time practicing than worrying about what Neve just released. Lol.

Ha, I know I keep trying to remind myself of that, but its crazy how quickly I can get distracted by GEAR!!

You said you write demos for your bands, so you never track them? Do you go to a studio or?

Yep! That's most often what I do. For some of my solo stuff I just mix it myself, but I have really come to respect my limitations with full band songs. I am a guitar player first and foremost, and my mixing skills are basic at best. It would take me a long, long time to get to a point where my mixes are as good as I would like for a full band. I would rather have someone else take that role, as they have put as much time into honing that craft, as I have into learning guitar. Plus its pretty awesome that I am in a position to support my other friends who have worked hard to establish themselves as engineers.
 

Descent

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 7, 2014
Messages
1,594
Reaction score
603
Location
Houston, TX
I prefer to take the mixing and mastering somewhere else so that way I am divorced from the band process :)
 
Top