[LAU] Sound quality of the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 2nd Gen

[Johannes Kroll]

On Sun, 8 Jan 2017 19:32:19 +0100
Ralf Mardorf <ralf.mardorf at alice-dsl.net> wrote:

> On Sun, 8 Jan 2017 18:44:39 +0100, Johannes Kroll wrote:
> >There is a problem with my Scarlett where sometimes I get horrible
> >crackling noise. Restarting JACK fixes this. Could this be your issue
> >as well?  
> 
> No, I had this with the Presonus, but choosing another USB slot fixed
> the issue.
> 
> Missing alsamixer controls aren't a problem for me.

Don't you want to adjust gain, change routing etc? I do that often.


> On Sun, 8 Jan 2017 18:45:45 +0100, Robin Gareus wrote:
> >The Scarlett series however is pretty much crap.
> >Just terminate the input with 200 Ohm, start jnoisemeter and start
> >wondering which award those "award winning preamps" won.  
> 
> I read an old thread about this. Fons replied ironical "a marketing
> award" or something like this. The outputs have less gain, but aren't
> noisy. I didn't test the inputs.

I agree the inputs aren't great. They are pretty noisy. Probably a
company-internal award - have 3 people design a preamp and "award"
the one with the best price-performance ration, or something like
that. ;) Pure marketing. I didn't have quite as bad an impression as you
describe though.


> This btw. would be the only thing close to a measurement I could do:
> In regards to subjective audio quality I could record a WAV from the
> analog outputs to the analog inputs of the Focusrite and for comparison
> do the same with the RME card and the ADA8000. Then it would be possible
> to listen to the original WAV and the recorded WAVs or to take a look
> at a spectral analysis.

So you would mix the input & output results together... But it would be
possible to upload the files somewhere. I would be interested to see
this, as I don't have another interface comparable to the Focusrite.