[Profire 610 vs Digi 003R. Need Help!

[Tritono]

Hey! Hello,

Im J.P.

I need your help and experience. Im living a confuse unexpected situation.

The situation:

I had a M-Audio Firewire Solo. I updated the drivers of the device and it died. I will put it in the technical service but I want to upgrade it.

I dont trust in M-Audio anymore but I was thinking in buy a Profire 610 because, for example, I know that Keith Merrow get a pretty good tone using this.

For the moment, I will use a Pod x3 via s/pdif, the midi in, the mic preamps and I will record two or three tracks simultanuosly at the same time in real time. I was pretty decided about the Profire 610 when I discover the damn bug in the drivers of the Profire. Check it Profire 610 serious recording bug. Not accurate That bug plus my experience with the Firewire solo make me worring about M-Audio.

I live in South America. Here there are not much options of brands in the audio world. I discover a shop here that sell Digidesign soundcards.

I need to pick one. I dont have experience with the soundcards mentioned.

The most important thing for me is the sound quality and stability .

- Profire 610: look good but there are some serious bugs. It has good converters and mic preamps (they say) but bad drivers and support in M-Audio. The device comes without DAW (only Ableton but I dont use it).

- Digi 003: Protools 8 LE and relative stability. Some people say that the digi has bad converters and mic preamps. Some people say is good other people say is crap.

Im using Cubase 5 for DAW. Im very curious about Protools because there are many people saying is a very good DAW. I dont know what to do about the election. For example, I have some pluggins in Cubase: the default ones and some others downloaded and they dont sound good at all. I feel they like cold and artificial, unreal. Some people say that Protools plugins are way better and real. I just dont know because I dont have experience.

What is the best option? I cant try it before buy in my country. Here the customer service sucks.

Like I said, never used Protools but im intelligent and I can learn fast if its worth. I wanted good sound quality and stability in the device.

I will wait for your answers, is very important to me.

Thank you!

Really appreciated.

J.P.

 

[Tritono]

Bump!

 

[7 Dying Trees]

get the digi003. if you then don't like the converters, then link it via optical to a card with converters you do like. I see nothing wrong with the 003, i also have it linked via optical adat to my focusrite saffire pro40.

to be honest, i'd say if you get to the level of noticing the converters then that is fairly anal.

Also, you get pro tools 8 with it, free, which makes it very cool to be honest.

So yeah, i'd say go with the digi003. Mine has been good to me

 

[7 Dying Trees]

also, cubase 5 will work with the digi003, so you can use both daw's

 

[eaeolian]

I would certainly trust the 003 over the M-Audio, especially with that offset issue.

 

[warped]

Isn't the Digi003 like 10x the cost of a Profire 610 though?

 

[7 Dying Trees]

Digi003 is expensive, yes, but, you get full pro tools LE with it, ie, you don't have to buy the software on top of it.

Also, I got my digi003 second hand. At the same time, you can get a second hand digi003/002, then just buy the really cheap mbox micro which then gets you pro tools and a full account. many ways to do this.

Also, I'd actually look into getting a focusrite saffire pro40 instead of the profire610. Same price, very very good preamps, loopback, and way more inputs/outputs.

The digi003 is about 3-4 times the cost of the profire, but has more connectivity, and comes with pro tools.