KVR Audio

Spiritos · Post by **Spiritos** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:26 pm

Hi,

I recently assembled a monster PC (at least according to my standards) with the DAW OS (it's a dual-boot) completely tweaked and slimmed down for DAW work. I have no DPC latency issues and all works perfect but I'm a bit disappointed in the roundtrip latency values I get with my Steinberg UR44 interface.

In Sonar X3/Live 9 and Cubase AI7 I get a roundtrip latency of 11.6 ms with 96/44.1 which is pretty much the same as with my former 6 yo dual-core system which was a non-tweaked all-in-one PC.

Main components of my DAW build are:
i7-4970K/Asus Z97 Pro/16GB RAM/Samsung Pro 250GB/GTX 960 2GB.

I have applied all known tweaks for Win 8.1 (64x), updated drivers, tried USB 2.0 vs 3.0 ports, disabled all external devices like my printer, tried turning off turbo-boost, killed all non-essential processes etc. etc.

Now Steinberg support is absent (always is but now with NAMM in absolute terms) and the Cakewalk forums (Sonar X3 is my go-to DAW) all blame Steinberg without any hard evidence other than a close to 3000 euro PC with a 250 euro AI is a mismatch but I find that unsatisfying.

So I figured I wanted some benchmarks from other users with the UR44 -no matter what DAW for comparison's sake.

Would people be so kind to post some numbers of their system with the UR44 (I looked for other threads but saw no latency values so...)?

I'm not at home now but will post a bigger list later including different samplerates p/daw.

Regards,

Kaine · Post by **Kaine** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 12:38 pm

I'd expect that, RTL doesn't really change between systems as its hardware driver dependent. So yeah, that's Steinberg driver specific, although 11ms is a argueably a passable score through.

96/44.1 however... is that right? I'm questioning the 96 part!

Is that a buffer setting of 96? Normally when you see that sort of figure it's bit depth and normally something more like 24/48 or 16/44.1 (cd quality).

24/96 would make sense, but then you'd be hammering the CPU.

Spiritos · Post by **Spiritos** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 6:34 pm

I realise the the AI's driver latency is what it is but I expected it to be <10 ms given the fact the DAW OS is finetuned. Also I know the UR44 is not top notch but it sure is better than my old Edirol UA-25 which gave me around 15 ms on a non-optimized all-in-on dual-core PC.

The numbers are right. I expected Cubase to outperform Sonar and Live since the UR44 integrates so well even though it's a free version but they're similair.

Buffer/Samplerate/roundtrip latency

Sonar X3
96/44.1 = 10.9
96/48 = 10.0
64/44.1 = 9.5
64/48 = 8.7
128/44.1 = 14.4
128/48 = 13.8

Live 9
96/44.1 = 11.6
98/48 = 11.1
64/41.1 = 9.5
64/48 = 9.2
128/44.1 = 14.4
128/48 = 13.8

Cubase AI7
96/44.1 = 10.9
96/48 = 10.4
64/44.1 = 9.7
64/48 = 9.1
128/44.1 = 14.4
128/48 = 13.8

fese · Post by **fese** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 9:47 pm

Looking at the results over at http://www.dawbench.com/audio-int-lowlatency3.htm, your results don't seem particularly exciting but not much worse than some other: for 128/44.1 the Steinberg UR28M ist listed with 14.2m, NIs Komplete6 with 13.1 and even the much more expensive Motu 828 has 13.2 msec. I guess if you want noticably better performance you gotta pay up at get an RME

b4serenity · Post by **b4serenity** » Sat Apr 18, 2015 2:47 pm

The ESI Julia xtE seems like a good deal for the performance you get for $200.
I like the design as the whole cards upper half can be rotated to give you 1/4" TRS? plugs or RCAs...pretty cool. I guess it will depend on the driver support as well. Does anyone have one of these in use?

Spiritos · Post by **Spiritos** » Sat Apr 18, 2015 3:04 pm

@fese: Thanks for the link. Excellent background info!

I'm really starting to understand the "money pit" this hobby is though...

Solarfall · Post by **Solarfall** » Mon Apr 20, 2015 8:59 am

ESI Juli@ xte is nice card, but it is unavailable for more than half a year and ESI is not able to tell me when it will be. I would not hold my breath.

Chris-S · Post by **Chris-S** » Tue Apr 21, 2015 8:34 am

In theory everything under 20ms is perceived as one sound. So does it really matter?

Spiritos · Post by **Spiritos** » Tue Apr 21, 2015 9:40 am

Chris-S wrote:In theory everything under 20ms is perceived as one sound. So does it really matter?

In practice this is a matter of personal perception. To me when doing vocals or playing jazzballads on keys through VST's I can usually hear anything above 10 ms (depending on the VST).

Kaine · Post by **Kaine** » Tue Apr 21, 2015 3:02 pm

Spiritos wrote:I realise the the AI's driver latency is what it is but I expected it to be <10 ms given the fact the DAW OS is finetuned. Also I know the UR44 is not top notch but it sure is better than my old Edirol UA-25 which gave me around 15 ms on a non-optimized all-in-on dual-core PC.

Yeah, I'd expect the scores to change slightly under different DAWS as the DAW engine routing is in play there.

The whole point of ASIO is to bypass the Windows driver set completely, which is why I don't expect any amount of Windows tweaking to have an impact here. Tweaking Windows itself is designed to lower the DPC latency rather than the RTL latency.

Here we tend to work on RTL latency as being noticable (hearing wise) to drummers around 12μs, guitarists around 15μs and vocalists at around 18μs or 20μs as a guideline, so I can see how some users might be able to feel 10μs whilst playing.

A lot of the cheaper interfaces claim 32/64 buffer support and whilst they can hit it on a number of tracks at 16/44.1, the performance starts to show through as you ramp up the quality settings. As someone else noted, its why RME finds itself the popular when higher end studios spec their gear.

Chris-S · Post by **Chris-S** » Tue Apr 21, 2015 4:52 pm

μs

I wanna have this interface.

fese · Post by **fese** » Sun Apr 26, 2015 1:42 pm

Spiritos wrote:@fese: Thanks for the link. Excellent background info!

I'm really starting to understand the "money pit" this hobby is though...

Looking at your signature and your gear list, you are quite late with that insight

(But who am I telling this, I bought an RME UCX last year...)

Spiritos · Post by **Spiritos** » Sun Apr 26, 2015 2:31 pm

fese wrote:Looking at your signature and your gear list, you are quite late with that insight
(But who am I telling this, I bought an RME UCX last year...)

Hehe.. well, most of my gear was bought on the used market. Even the UR44 I got as a B-stock.
There's still stuff I'd like to trade in like the BRC2000 and Nanopad for a Maschine but I thought I was 'ready' for now with my UR44 and a brand new PC.

It's that I need 3 mic inputs for recording guitar and vocals but I don't see an affordable alternative for the UR44. Guess it's gonna be a moneyraining Christmas again this year

UltraJv · Post by **UltraJv** » Sun Apr 26, 2015 3:13 pm

An affordable solution for lower latency would have been to buy an RME rather than a new PC. Kinda late now. Less than 1ms here on RME HDSP 9632. No tweaks to Windows to get that.

Spiritos · Post by **Spiritos** » Sun Apr 26, 2015 6:37 pm

Well, the new PC was a real necessity since my old one was falling apart and it's sort of the "nerve-centre" of all electronics in my house.
But I got the message: RME rules

Steinberg UR44 latency benchmarks thread