Topic by lovelovemale

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Topic: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

Hi, has anybody any experience how good the Schiit Dacs particularly the Modi2 works with Pianoteq?
I am especially concerned about latency. I want to connect my studio monitors to the Modi2 and control the volume with the Schiit Sys.

Will it be an improvement in sound compared to the Focusrite Scarlett?
And will I be able to keep low latency? Currently I have about 3-4 ms in standalone.

I'm considering this since I only use the Scarlett for the studio monitors, don't need any mic preams etc since I am a pure piano player and not analogue recorder.

I contacted Schiit for questions about latency but haven't received a response yet. Thanks for your thoughts!

Reply by EvilDragon

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

Do they even have ASIO drivers? If not, your Scarlett would be better.

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Reply by lovelovemale

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

EvilDragon wrote:

Do they even have ASIO drivers? If not, your Scarlett would be better.

I believe not, I would use it with a MacBook, as far as my research goes they's use core audio then since Macs don't need the ASIO right?

Thanks for your input!

Reply by EvilDragon

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

I guess it could work alright with CoreAudio. But I don't think you'll have any huge benefits regarding fidelity of sound compared to Scarlett...

Hard work and guts!

Reply by lovelovemale

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

Thanks for your input!

I just thought since I am not using ANY of the Scarlett's features except using it as a "DAC" but I paid for the preamps, instrument inputs etc....

I thought maybe the R&D of the Schiit purely as a DAC will sound better since they solely focus on that except focusing providing an all in one solution in form of an interface...

Thought maybe somebody has had the chance to have tried this setup with Pianoteq so far

Reply by EvilDragon

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

What R&D, they are using off-the-shelf DAC chip (AKM AK4490 or Analog Devices AD5547 depending on model)?

Scarlett uses Cirrus Logic CS4272, IIRC.

All of these are more or less in the ballpark...

Last edited by EvilDragon (19-06-2018 22:00)
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Reply by lovelovemale

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

Fair enough. I'm not very tech savvy with what's good in terms of DAC so thanks for clarification!
So basically no improvement can be expected from the Schiit right?

Also one more question to you Evil Dragon:

Will the Mackie Onyx Artist audio interface be also in the same ballpark as the Focusrite Scarlett?

Thanks again!

Reply by EvilDragon

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

I've no experience with Mackie audio interfaces, they're not often seen in those circles, whereas Focusrite is quite commonplace. Perhaps that says something.

Last edited by EvilDragon (19-06-2018 22:55)
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Reply by dazric

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

Has anyone done a list of 'tried and tested' interfaces that are known to work well with Pianoteq on Windows - i.e. good sound AND reliable ASIO drivers? It seems that even if an interface has ASIO drivers they are not always particularly good! (I tried a Zoom U-24: it may have been OK with DAWs but for Pianoteq standalone it was a piece of junk - absolutely ridiculous latency, couldn't work with it at all).

Reply by AKM

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

(whispers) ... rme, check for rme ... ... ... zzz

Andrei Kuznetsov
https://www.youtube.com/pianopictures

AKM's Website

Reply by dazric

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

Ah yes, I'm well aware of the excellent reputation of RME, but they're way beyond my budget, unfortunately.

This Windows audio driver issue is one of the factors that makes people look at Linux, isn't it? On Linux, when it's set up with a low-latency kernel, you can use a good quality audio DAC without worrying about drivers. I did experiment with Linux Mint a while ago, I liked it, but the computer I installed it on no longer works. Looks like I might need to get back into Linux...

Reply by EvilDragon

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

I had no problems with built-in WASAPI in W10. In many cases it worked better than ASIO4ALL...

Hard work and guts!

Reply by dazric

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

Will take a look at WASAPI - I was vaguely aware of its existence but didn't realise it would be any good for Pianoteq. Thanks, EvilDragon!

(Update) - uh, got confused there for a few minutes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but WASAPI is the same as Windows Audio (Exclusive Mode), right? I used to avoid Windows Audio, thinking I would get horrible latency, but I tried it just now and (touch wood) it seemed fine. Played lots of crazy notes in the bass with the pedal on and got away with it! That's not the way I normally play the piano so WA should be great if I want to use my audio DAC.

Last edited by dazric (22-06-2018 15:20)

Reply by EvilDragon

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

Yes that's the same thing. "WA" in WASAPI is "Windows Audio".

Hard work and guts!

Reply by dazric

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

Excellent. It seems as though I may have finally got an audio setup worthy of Pianoteq 6.2.

Reply by lovelovemale

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Re: Schiit Dac for Pianoteq, latency? Sound quality?

For anybody interested

I purchased a Mackie Onyx Artist 1.2 & a Behringer UMC 202 HD to play pianoteq through studio monitors.
I first wanted to get a Schiit Dac but the customer service never got back to me so don't want to give them money if they don't even care to e-mail back....

Anyways the Mackie Interface was quite good, latency 2.7ms with my MacBook. However the MacBook's internal sound card achieves also 2.7 ms and the sound is the same. I could never tell when connected directly to the MacBook or via Interface. The roundtrip latency in Logic was about 2ms better with the interface.

The Behringer sound quality was worse than my MacBook's or the Mackie's. I'm not recording anything that's why I wanted to get a DAC only in the first place ... but I wanted something to drive my studio monitors however the MacBook is doing an equivalent job as the interfaces tested.... so it's hard to justify $100 for no improvement and no difference.

Anyway, thought might be interesting to know and share these experiences.