Скачать или смотреть USB Interface Shootout: Roland Quad-Capture vs. Focusrite 2i4 Recording Comparison Test

I did a shootout comparison recording test of my Roland Quad-Capture vs. my Focusrite 2i4 USB interface by recording myself in stereo with two mics strumming the open strings on my cedar-top classical guitar at all available sampling rates. Here are some shortcuts:

0:15 Roland 44.1 kHz
1:27 Roland 48 kHz
2:25 Roland 96 kHz
3:30 Roland 192 kHz
4:33 Focusrite 44.1 kHz
5:46 Focusrite 48 kHz
7:04 Focusrite 88.2 kHz
8:22 Focusrite 96 kHz

Notes:

Please consider listening with good headphones for the best sound.

I strummed with a guitar pick for maximum consistency.

When recording with the recording-level knobs of these two interfaces at the three o'clock position, the Roland is about 10 (ten) db louder on the input meters of Reaper than the Focusrite. Doesn't seem to affect the s/n ratio of the actual recordings, though.

Reaper is really good at resampling (changing the audio recording from one sampling rate to another) and preserving the original sound quality. I've done many recordings at 96 kHz and 24 bits and rendered directly to CD (44.1 kHz, 16 bit) and the sonic advantages of 96 kHz are amazingly preserved on the CD. I carefully resampled the recordings to 48 kHz to make this MP4 video for upload to YouTube.

My ears hear the following (your ears may differ, of course): The Focusrite recordings have very focused 3D imaging, but they seem very slightly bright, light and thin compared with reality. The Roland recordings capture the heft and dynamics of the guitar faithfully, and at the highest sampling frequencies, the imaging seems very nicely focused and the high frequencies well-preserved.

When listening to any sort of audio with headphones, I find the headphone jack on the Roland sounds richer and fuller than the Focusrite.

Overall, I feel that the Roland slightly edges out the Focusrite in pure sound quality, coming closest to how my guitar sounds in person, esp. at the 192 kHz sampling rate.

Any comments are welcome. Cheers!