Spl crimson vs. Audient id22
Guys,
This is my first real post on gearslutz. I felt compelled to write this since I was facing the exact same choice - SPL Crimson vs. Audient ID22.
In the past week I have had the opportunity to test out both the SPL Crimson and the Audient ID22. I bought the Crimson but was still curious enough about the Audient so I bought it as well and thought I will return one after doing a head to head comparison.
My system is a brand new latest Macbook Pro, 16GB RAM, 1TB Flash, the highest available processor. So this machine is no slouch. I run Ableton Live 9 on it with numerous plugins (nexus2, synthmaster, waves gold bundle, soundtoys, sugarbytes, and list goes on...). Some of these are quite memory hungry plugins so I made project with a lot going on to see how these interfaces stack up against one another.
As for the outboard gear, I am using a Rode NT2 mic plugged into the units using a Mogami cable. I even bought a $35 USB cable since there is some talk of improved data transmission rates with higher end cables. I wanted to take out any extraneous factors for my comparison.
At first I just had the Crimson by itself for a few days and generally I was able to run most projects using 128 or 256 samples without getting any crackling while getting a roundtrip latency of around 15ms, using 96khz sample rate (since waves plugins wont work with 192khz). Going below 128 samples was questionable depending on the project size. So, I contacted SPL USA to see if there was anything else I could do to improve the latency. The guy who partly designed the unit actually emailed me directly. He asked if I was using their bitcore driver since it has a much better processing than the core audio driver. This was his response:
"Bit Accurate and Core Audio drivers--
There is a huge difference between the core audio driver and the bit accurate driver. The bit accurate driver is a HAL driver which is an ASIO-like driver. HAL means „hardware abstraction layer“. An abstraction layer is implemented in software, between the physical hardware of a computer and the software that runs on that computer. Hardware abstraction layers are of an even lower level in computer languages than application programming interfaces (API) because they interact directly with hardware instead of a system kernel, therefore HALs require less processing time than APIs.
The bit accurate driver also bypasses the sample rate conversion that is always operating when the core audio driver is used. Apple „hides“ the latency induced by the sample rate conversation, which makes comparison less transparent leading to mis-interpretations.
For example a 32 samples input buffer under core audio is as fast as a 256 samples input buffer with the bit accurate driver. And a 32 samples output buffer under core audio is as fast as a 768 samples buffer with the bit accurate driver (both examples @ 48kHz sample rate). Therefore the bit accurate driver delivers a more stable system performance because bigger buffers can be used and at the time offering a faster performance with less latency.
When to use Bit Accurate and Core Audio drivers?
If you connect the input to the output and you want the loop to stay under 20ms, there is no way to achieve this with the core audio driver.
If you need to play a song with iTunes, there is no way to achieve this with the HAL driver, because system audio cannot be played back with a HAL driver.
If bit accuracy is important for you, e.g. because you want to master a CD, you can only achieve this with the HAL driver.
Here are three spreadsheets showing (see attached files)
A) the buffer size and corresponding latency of bit accurate and core audio drivers
B) Equivalent input speeds and corresponding buffer sizes of bit accurate and core audio drivers
C) Equivalent output speeds and corresponding buffer size of bit accurate and core audio drivers"
So, at first I was like yeah right - core audio drivers should be faster since that's what Apple's OSX uses - but what do I know - I am not a programmer by any means. So, reading Audient's lower latency figures I felt compelled enough to buy it.
So, for the comparison:
Sound Quality:
I ran a light project on both and recorded some vocals to hear the sound quality. Initially I was very impressed with the Audient sound - it was clear, very very low noise floor, and sounded pleasant. Comparing to the SPL, it seemed to have a slightly higher noise floor than the Audient but very negligible difference. After listening to both for a while, I found the SPL to be more natural while the Audient brightened the higher frequencies somewhat and sounded a bit more colored like the Apogee Duet 2 (I used it for a while and ended up returning it). So, in the sound category both were good, but SPL won out by a small margin even though the Audient may have produced a slightly quieter recording (not much of an issue for me since I do mainly EDM type of stuff). Don't get me wrong, both are very quiet but Audient seems a little quieter.
Next, was how do these stack up in a heavier project. What sample size can I get away with before it starts to snap crackle and pop all over the place. With the Audient, I could not run this project even with it set at the highest sample size of 2048. It was crackling all over the place. Whereas, that same project with the SPL - I could actually work with it using a sample size of 1024. So, to me SPL was the clear winner in this category.
Latency:
As for latency, both offer zero-latency monitoring. Audient uses a software mixer to do this (very easy) while the SPL has a very simple hardware knob that allows you to monitor the incoming analog signal with the output from your DAW. So, if you don't need to monitor your vocals with complex onboard effects, both do it very well with simplicity (SPL slightly simple due to no software mixer to deal with). If your vocalist needs some basic reverb, its simple. Monitor your incoming signal with zero-latency and place a reverb on the output of your DAW - it's like getting a predelay for free without affecting the actual timing of your recording.
Other features:
Monitor Control:
Both have monitor control feature to allow connection of two pairs of monitors. No major difference there. On the SPL there is a trim control to equalize the loudness between two sets of monitors - makes it easier to do an A to B comparison of your mix.
Headphones:
Both headphone amps sounded great with my 600ohm senn HD600 and with my Senn HD25-1 II phones. SPL has a second headphone out which makes it easier if you are recording in a small room so you can monitor your vocalist while he/she is using the other set of headphones.
Power switch:
Neither have an on/off switch which kind of sucks. I bought a power conditioner/strip so that takes care of that problem.
Construction:
both are nice and solid. No complaints there.
CONCLUSION:
SPL Crimson was the one for me. I wanted to make sure that I would never have problems using an interface with a heavy project. It also has slightly better sound quality, two headphone outs, and no software mixer to deal with making it a breeze to use. I hope this helps!