# Low latency of Apollo vs. RME card on Mac only.



## Headlands (May 22, 2020)

This is *ONLY for Mac* (or Hackintosh)-- Windows users need not respond unless you have direct Mac experience with what I'm about to ask:

How would you compare RME devices to UAD Apollo as far as low latency performance and drivers on Macs or Hackintoshes? I only want to know about that -- no comments needed on mic pres, TotalMix vs Console or anything else. This is for a Hackintosh, and it would be a PCIe RME card vs. an Apollo 8 2nd gen TB2. I did a search but most comparisons are for Windows, and I'd like to the most up-to-date opinions. 

I needed to post where I'd get more views and opinions than on the Computers/Hardware forum, so that's why I'm posting here.


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## wst3 (May 23, 2020)

This is year old data (nearly that anyway), and oddly it was a Hackintosh, and even stranger, the debate was between an Apollo Twin (TB) and an RME, can't recall the exact model, not sure it matters.

There was a difference in latency, but it was subtle, not at all what I expected. I probably would not make this my primary point for decision making. Or at least I would not have back then.

By the numbers the RME did report lower latency, and it was stable at smaller buffer sizes, but it just wasn't an issue. I could comfortably play in to a track, MIDI or Audio, with no problems.

It has been my experience that RME is a little better at maintaining their drivers, so if I did not want access to the UA Unison plugins I'd use RME. But I do love the Unison plugins, so it looks like I'm sticking with a UA interface for the now.

You almost certainly know this, but with the exception of the Unison plugins you do not need a UA audio interface to run the rest. I mention this because I know a couple folks that were unaware of the other options for UA DSP plugins.


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## Headlands (May 23, 2020)

wst3 said:


> This is year old data (nearly that anyway), and oddly it was a Hackintosh, and even stranger, the debate was between an Apollo Twin (TB) and an RME, can't recall the exact model, not sure it matters.
> 
> There was a difference in latency, but it was subtle, not at all what I expected. I probably would not make this my primary point for decision making. Or at least I would not have back then.
> 
> ...



Thank you - great information.

I'm almost at the point where I don't need UAD plugins anymore (I've gotten there on purpose), so that wouldn't be an issue. I already have the Apollo 8 and was considering an RME card for my new Windows machine (would run it through the Apollo for its converters and Unison), but now have decided to make it a Hackintosh (I came from Mac before the new Windows machine, and I've decided I much prefer Mac after over a month on Window) and was curious since the RMEs had such stellar ratings and reports for stability and latency. 

On Windows the Apollo wasn't good at low latencies, which is an acknowledged issue by users, so I was going to order the RME because it's supposed to be far better performance-wise. Now that I'll be back on Mac I'm curious about its performance vs. the Apollo.


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## Dracarys (May 23, 2020)

Not sure, but my engineer says his Avid HDX I/O blows them both away, legit mac and hackintosh.


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## Headlands (May 23, 2020)

Dracarys said:


> Not sure, but my engineer says his Avid HDX I/O blows them both away, legit mac and hackintosh.



Interesting -- dunno. I'm sticking to either the Apollo 8 I have or an RME card that I'll route through the Apollo.


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## mike_solar (May 23, 2020)

I just sold my RME Fireface 400 after using it for over ten years and replaced it with an Apollo x6. I do really like the UAD plugins and have been using these since the Mackie days. My experience after two months with the Apollo is that, if not for the much improved latency with using UAD plugins, I'd happily go back to RME. For some reason, RME feels a bit more solid, however, I can't say I've had any problems with the Apollo. In fact, the converters on the Apollo are much improved and there is a clarity that I'm now hearing in my room (note that we are comparing two devices from different decades). What bugs me is that I often use different audio related apps at the same time set at different sample rates, for example RX and QT might be 44.1, and Logic Pro or Soundminer, etc... at 48kHz or 96kHz - all open on my desktop at the same time. When I go between applications, it causes the interface to hiccup and physically switch sample rates (it even makes a little sound on the box). I don't remember having this experience with RME but I worry that this physical switching could cause problems after a number of years. I feel like my old RME box will literally last forever. Just to reiterate, I do like the Apollo though and plan on keeping it at this time... Additionally, I am curious why RME still sells mostly USB. I was certainly influenced by UAD's move to update all their interfaces to Thunderbolt 3. Not sure if anyone has thoughts on this, but why is RME mostly committed to USB? For cross platform compatibility? Is it even an issue from a bandwidth perspective?


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## clisma (May 23, 2020)

You said it: cross-platform compatibility. RME does offer Thunderbolt 2 on the UFX+ but really, with USB3 the bandwidth is not an issue. And while latency might be seen as an issue, RME’s USB drivers are so good that the difference seems negligible.


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## Headlands (May 23, 2020)

mike_solar said:


> I just sold my RME Fireface 400 after using it for over ten years and replaced it with an Apollo x6. I do really like the UAD plugins and have been using these since the Mackie days. My experience after two months with the Apollo is that, if not for the much improved latency with using UAD plugins, I'd happily go back to RME. For some reason, RME feels a bit more solid, however, I can't say I've had any problems with the Apollo. In fact, the converters on the Apollo are much improved and there is a clarity that I'm now hearing in my room (note that we are comparing two devices from different decades). What bugs me is that I often use different audio related apps at the same time set at different sample rates, for example RX and QT might be 44.1, and Logic Pro or Soundminer, etc... at 48kHz or 96kHz - all open on my desktop at the same time. When I go between applications, it causes the interface to hiccup and physically switch sample rates (it even makes a little sound on the box). I don't remember having this experience with RME but I worry that this physical switching could cause problems after a number of years. I feel like my old RME box will literally last forever. Just to reiterate, I do like the Apollo though and plan on keeping it at this time... Additionally, I am curious why RME still sells mostly USB. I was certainly influenced by UAD's move to update all their interfaces to Thunderbolt 3. Not sure if anyone has thoughts on this, but why is RME mostly committed to USB? For cross platform compatibility? Is it even an issue from a bandwidth perspective?



How does the low-latency performance compare between the two for you?


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## mike_solar (May 23, 2020)

I actually have not noticed a difference so far, latency-wise. I'm running at a 256 buffer setting. This has been fine for large midi-template orchestral programming. I haven't had an opportunity to record live acoustic instruments yet (besides voice and hardware synths, where I didn't hear any latency at all).


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 23, 2020)

Sorry to be so cranky, but why the f is latency the only thing people talk about?

Well, I know the answer - because of marketing disinformation. :( It's a disservice to musicians.

But sound quality is the most important consideration. That's what people should be talking about.


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## Headlands (May 23, 2020)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Sorry to be so cranky, but why the f is latency the only thing people talk about?
> 
> Well, I know the answer - because of marketing disinformation. :( It's a disservice to musicians.
> 
> But sound quality is the most important consideration. That's what people should be talking about.



Others have different concerns -- totally up to the individual. I would be using the Apollo converters either way here, and its sound quality is great. Sound quality is hugely important for me, and latency is also incredibly important as well. But PLEASE let's not continue with this because it's irrelevant to my original post.


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## Headlands (May 23, 2020)

mike_solar said:


> I actually have not noticed a difference so far, latency-wise. I'm running at a 256 buffer setting. This has been fine for large midi-template orchestral programming. I haven't had an opportunity to record live acoustic instruments yet (besides voice and hardware synths, where I didn't hear any latency at all).



Ok cool, good to know. I might just stick with the Apollo then.


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 23, 2020)

Headlands said:


> Others have different concerns -- totally up to the individual. I would be using the Apollo converters either way here, and its sound quality is great. Sound quality is hugely important for me, and latency is also incredibly important as well. But PLEASE let's not continue with this because it's irrelevant to my original post.



Nope, I'm not going to comply. It's totally relevant to your original post. Sorry, you've been sent on a wild goose chase by silly marketing.

Mike_solar is running his sequencer at a 256-sample buffer, which in Logic is roughly 7ms output (at regular sample rates). I usually run Logic at a 64-sample buffer, or 3.3ms - on my 20-year-old FireWire interface (Metric Halo 2882) and 11-year-old Mac.

The difference in latency between high-quality interfaces is very small these days. What makes the difference is your computer and what you're running (i.e. how much you're stressing it, whether you need to raise your buffer). And most people - not everyone, most people - won't feel the difference even then.


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 23, 2020)

Also, MIDI itself has latency that dwarfs the interface latency.


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## Headlands (May 23, 2020)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Nope, I'm not going to comply. It's totally relevant to your original post. Sorry, you've been sent on a wild goose chase by silly marketing.
> 
> Mike_solar is running his sequencer at a 256-sample buffer, which in Logic is roughly 7ms output (at regular sample rates). I usually run Logic at a 64-sample buffer, or 3.3ms - on my 20-year-old FireWire interface (Metric Halo 2882) and 11-year-old Mac.
> 
> The difference in latency between high-quality interfaces is very small these days. What makes the difference is your computer and what you're running (i.e. how much you're stressing it, whether you need to raise your buffer). And most people - not everyone, most people - won't feel the difference even then.



Now that's useful information - thank you! Your first post didn't go into these details.


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## Eloy (May 23, 2020)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Also, MIDI itself has latency that dwarfs the interface latency.


Nick,
This is a statement I would like to understand more -Please explain -“ Midi latency that dwarfs the interface latency”. Thank you, Eloy


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 23, 2020)

MIDI takes what, 10ms (off the top of my head)? to get from the keyboard into the sequencer and trigger the V.I. (Not only is that a guess, but the actual point in the key travel where the note-on is generated is hard to know - although I"m sure someone here who knows how they work does know.)

The main thing is that most people... well, that's not scientific - I, at least - can tell the difference between the latency with a 128- and 256-sample buffer. But it's pretty subtle, and only when A/B-ing. And only with percussive sounds, of course.

For perspective, I'm not a real actual keyboard keyboard player, but I do play enough keys to use them as a tool.

Look, latency definitely is a real factor. It's not like one shouldn't care at all. A 512-sample buffer is enough to be annoying if you have to work like that. The problem is what I've been ranting about: people have been trained to ask about an interface's latency before they ask how many ins and outs it has!


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 23, 2020)

By the way, I've only been talking about keyboards. But I have no latency issues playing percussion parts on my BopPad percussion controller, never mind my EWI.

Oh, and we're talking about playing V.I.s. If you're recording audio, direct monitoring is your friend.


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## Eloy (May 23, 2020)

Nick,
Thank you for clarity on midi. My current I/O for Logic Pro is 128 I/O buffer on orchestrated V.I. samples. Anything higher and I have difficulty added more tracks that are in sync (I rarely play to a click track). I have purchased a new Mac Pro which will make my existing Zoom TAC2R thunderbolt 1 interface useless (no drivers for Catalina). Do you believe the interface (usb or thunderbolt) makes a difference when playing samples only?


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## jononotbono (May 23, 2020)

Dracarys said:


> Not sure, but my engineer says his Avid HDX I/O blows them both away, legit mac and hackintosh.



He’s correct. However, if you want latency free Unity preamps to suddenly record a vocal or Guitar part whilst in session with a high buffer, and using the best plugins in the world, it’s hard to ignore the Apollo. Especially if you hook one up in conjunction with a HDX system.


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## Nick Batzdorf (May 24, 2020)

Avid HDX uses its own cards, like Pro Tools TDM did. It's not going through the computer.

Or it's using the host as well as the cards, if I'm right.

But I haven't kept up with Pro Tools since selling my TDM system years ago. I'm still using PT 10, which is all I need for how I use it. (Because I use Logic for writing.) So apologies if I'm wrong.


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## Selfinflicted (May 25, 2020)

AS Nick points out - you want to be clear which latency you're talking about, and it can be introduced at many different places.

I have a few Apollos and have and an Avid Omni, both of which I run through PT HD Native. I ditched my TDM system and had no more practical use for going up to HDX these days. To be clear - HDX will offer you no advantage in latency with MIDI/ VIs - they are almost all host based and don't hit the HDX cards (unless you have audio coming out of one system into the protools system via a separate audio interface, MADI etc). HDX will just take stress off your system for plugins or voice count, but no direct reduction in latency for VIs by using HDX. HDX is great for live monitoring of multiple simultaneous audio inputs (like an orchestral session) or live monitoring through a lot of plugins. On host based systems I prefer to use the Apollo (with HD Native) as the live monitoring has no detectable latency and any plugins used for live monitoring can come off the Apollo's processors - and they sound great. You're just limited to whatever processors you have on the Apollo. I don't record a ton of simultaneous audio inputs live. The Omni was actually more of a pain with less flexibility - had to change buffer settings a lot, etc. I've never had players complain about latency on the Apollo - for live monitoring it really is basically nothing.

Can't help you with the RME stuff, sorry.

Word to the wise on building a Hackintosh with thunderbolt. I've made 8 (or more) hacks over the past 6-7 years. Hacking has gotten a lot less painful in the past 4 years or so, but Thunderbolt definitely complicates the build. Of 2 thunderbolt builds I've done 1 worked great and 1 was a pain. The biggest thing with Hackintoshes is you want to be good with computers or be willing to put the time in to become good with computers, and then find a known successful build with someone doing what you want to do and stick to the yellow brick road. I always bought parts based on existing builds and didn't really try to make a build with parts I already. That's a roll of the dice. I limit OS upgrades to every 3 years or so and it is much less painful. Sometimes it just made more sense for me to make a new build and design it around a newer OS.

If you already have a PC build and are trying to turn that into a hack, really try to find hack builds that people have already gotten working well with those components, or consider replacing some parts that differ on your current system. Video card is really something to pay attention to. And if you're using VEP at all, you'll want to be careful with network cards.

I usually look up builds on Tonymac. I was able to find builds people were using with an Apollo or Protools. There are other resources out there today as well now.


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## Headlands (May 25, 2020)

Selfinflicted said:


> AS Nick points out - you want to be clear which latency you're talking about, and it can be introduced at many different places.
> 
> I have a few Apollos and have and an Avid Omni, both of which I run through PT HD Native. I ditched my TDM system and had no more practical use for going up to HDX these days. To be clear - HDX will offer you no advantage in latency with MIDI/ VIs - they are almost all host based and don't hit the HDX cards (unless you have audio coming out of one system into the protools system via a separate audio interface, MADI etc). HDX will just take stress off your system for plugins or voice count, but no direct reduction in latency for VIs by using HDX. HDX is great for live monitoring of multiple simultaneous audio inputs (like an orchestral session) or live monitoring through a lot of plugins. On host based systems I prefer to use the Apollo (with HD Native) as the live monitoring has no detectable latency and any plugins used for live monitoring can come off the Apollo's processors - and they sound great. You're just limited to whatever processors you have on the Apollo. I don't record a ton of simultaneous audio inputs live. The Omni was actually more of a pain with less flexibility - had to change buffer settings a lot, etc. I've never had players complain about latency on the Apollo - for live monitoring it really is basically nothing.
> 
> ...



Agreed on all fronts re: Hackintosh. HDX is not on the table at all, that was someone else who talked about it. The Apollo will be fine, no need for RME.

Hackintosh is a major thing to undertake indeed, and unfortunately I would be building it from the Windows build I had made for me. I'd need a couple new cards, but there are other gambles and I'm learning it all from scratch -- I know very little about deeper computer stuff.

I really don't like Windows and want to try get back on Mac without paying the absurdly inflated prices for a new Mac Pro. If it's too difficult I'll just need to wait it out on Windows until I can afford a Mac Pro. I resent Apple in a huge way because of this -- they've priced a large amount of pro users out completely with their absurd pricing/insistance on not also offering i9 in addition to Xeon.


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## Audio Birdi (May 25, 2020)

Headlands said:


> Agreed on all fronts re: Hackintosh. HDX is not on the table at all, that was someone else who talked about it. The Apollo will be fine, no need for RME.
> 
> Hackintosh is a major thing to undertake indeed, and unfortunately I would be building it from the Windows build I had made for me. I'd need a couple new cards, but there are other gambles and I'm learning it all from scratch -- I know very little about deeper computer stuff.
> 
> I really don't like Windows and want to try get back on Mac without paying the absurdly inflated prices for a new Mac Pro. If it's too difficult I'll just need to wait it out on Windows until I can afford a Mac Pro. I resent Apple in a huge way because of this -- they've priced a large amount of pro users out completely with their absurd pricing/insistance on not also offering i9 in addition to Xeon.


Agreed, Apple should have gone AMD even, better pricing and thunderbolt is now available to all since Intel gave the specs to the USB foundation group.

I hope they come out with a Mac Pro Mini or something similar for those that don't need to spend $6K on insanely priced xeons.

Had an RME HDSPe AES with hackintosh and it worked like a charm!
The hum from my Behringer Ultramatch DAC was what annoyed me so I got a MOTU M2 which has specific Mac Drivers for ridiculously low-latency.


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## Selfinflicted (May 25, 2020)

I am currently running 5 hacks (3 computers per rig, 1 rig is a proper Mac with 2 hacks, one is 3 hacks and one is a Mac book pro woth 2 mini’s). I’ve had little thing a that can be annoying, but it has been well worth it to me to have myself and and assistant with compatible rigs and then mobile/home rig that can open anything I do in the studio. I would not have been able to afford that with all current macs.

if you do your research well you should be ok. Tonymacx86 is a great resource to learn about hacking. They have great topics and discussions. Can search anything. I was always able to find builds there. Also on YouTube check out morgonaut - she’s awesome.

if you have an Asus or Gigabyte motherboard and an intel processor life will be easy. If not, just really doing your research. Always be careful about video card Comparability - that is always the biggest hurdle after mb/cpu/os combination. And be really careful to get the right bios settings.


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