I’m in the market for a USB audio interface. I need minimum 6 inputs (preferably more), and was hoping to find USB 3. I don’t need faders, a rack unit is fine.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of options with USB 3, any recommendations?
#asknostr
Discussion
Why does it need to be usb3? Do you mean a usb C connector?
It’s not a must have…
But yeah, most things are USB C connectors now, I believe USB 3 is much lower latency, and just generally trying to future proof it. Seems odd that so many interfaces still use USB 2.0
Usb 3 and 2 are revisions of uab standard.
Usbc is a connector.
Bitrates are called "speed". These are low (150k), full (12M), high (480M) and super (5G - 20G).
There are four different endpoint "pipe" types: control, isochronous, interrupt and bulk.
Audio devices are always isochronous. This is the "guaranteed bandwidth and latency" mode. Its designed to detect errors but not correct errors like UDP.
USB full speed audio devices will have the exact same latency as a USB superspeed because its the packet rate and packet size that are constant across all speeds. A USB high-speed (2.0) device will have an enormous amount of bandwidth for many many isochronous audio channels (about 2000 audio streams)
Given this information, I doubt a superspeed audio codec will offer any improvement over what you can get with a device supporting only USB 2.0
Interesting, thank you for all the info!
I guess that explains why they mostly still use USB 2. There are some companies using USB 3, maybe it’s just to market to suckers like me 🤣
Mostly. The USB C connector is becoming so widespread the USB A connector will eventually be obsolete. Its more likely the manufacturer thats wanting to future proof their product. Youll always be able to find a upstream USB C hub with downstreamUSB A ports for older USB devices, and hubs do NOT introduce latency in audio.
Podtrak 8?
Thanks, i should have specified. I am looking for music tracking/production, not for podcasts.
I don’t see why you couldn’t use it for music though. The podcast aspect is really about giving you 8 headphone outputs that you wouldn’t typically get. And the ability to use it standalone without a laptop.
In addition to mic preamps, most interfaces built for music production would support a mix of line- and instrument-level audio, and a mix (or dual purpose) 1/8th inch and XLR jacks.
I will check out that model though, thanks for the recommendation!