S8 audio I/O?

The only reason the latency is lower at 96khz is because it takes half the time to play through the samples in the audio buffer. You can achieve the same effect by just halving the audio buffer instead. There is absolutely no reason to use 96khz outside of a producer's studio.

 

practical approach:
99,9999999% of the guys do not and will never use high definition audio with 96khz.
reason for this is pretty simple: look what is available in this format! nearly nothing and the music that is, is normally no DJ stuff at all. (jazz, classical...)
the "smart guys" that rip their CDs in "better quality" do in real just waste CPU-power and HDD space. CD = 16bit, 44,1khz. ripping this in something "higher" give exactly: NOTHING. the file can´t be better than the source.
for the real high end guys who digitalize their vinyl in with the best available equipment into 24bits 96khz....DJ is not the backround. first to do this perfectly is a pain in the ass and expensive (due to equipment) and nobody in the world would put such effort into "total to dead equalized and mastered EDM".

marketing approach:
it is for sure strange that the price reduced S4mk2 is able to manage 96khz and the flagship does not.

BUT:
that could be an indicator for a total new soundchip. might be the SOW for this had as target: give total best for 44.1 and 48....to keep the pricing acceptable skip 96. if 44.1 or 48 are better handled by this soundchip as it was in the old soundchip: good choice as 99,9999999% of all users will have advantages. best quality in the most used format is not a step back if you sacrifice for this a functionality that is anyway only used by a very low percentage of the users.

 

In that conclusion, the S8 might not be a producer tool :>

I mean, the S4 IS a Controller for "Classic" DJs that might be interested not to carry anymore Vinyl and Play with awesome new Features (back then), and now it's Time to go further.
Get rid of platteres and tempo faders, and play with your vast library (hopefully you gridded every Track) you've build up the last years - and hey, have fun with the Remix Deck

Allright, we agree that it MAY seem odd that NI downsized the sampling Resolution (maybe because you don't get more then 48kHz, if you buy your Tracks of them digital deliverence Services), but why the vast amount of Inputs, if you might not need them? Flagship attitude?

 

obviously ripping a cd will provide 16bit-44khz, oversampling was not the issue discussed. i purchase a lot of music from bandcamp that is 24bit-48khz, and some of it is 24-96khz. there are shops like qobuz in france that are already selling 'studio masters' in the 24bit-96khz standard, and not just for jazz. itunes will jump into this market sooner or later, and most probably, this will mark the beginning of the end of the cd era, when digital stores can actually provide better quality files than a cd.

i'm not getting into the argument about whether this is necessary or not, whether it is worth it, etcetera. just saying (again...) that it's odd to lower what already was somehow understood as a standard, in what is intended to be a flagship product.

because it is in fact a mixer on asteroids, a "Z4" as someone pointed out earlier. it's 50% mixer and 50% controller for the remix decks, and can control normal decks too... i see it as a good partner for a couple of 1200's and forgetting about the F1 and X1 combos, but that would be in a home dj booth.

because even though it's messier due to the amount of cables you have to carry and plug, it's obvious that it's much more portable the F1-X1 combo, and easier to fit into a standard club booth layout (CDJ-mixer), than an S8.

 

You are correct as long as the internal mixing/effects is still done at lower sample rates.

If this setting also affects the internal mixing/effects/timestretching (which I doubt) then the benefits are the same as a in a producer's studio: Helps with aliasing caused by the digital signal processing.

The latency calculation is completely misleading though. There is NO way that processing more data (by increasing sample rate) will improve latency. It will make it worse, not better.

 

So now I want this lol. So if you have a Z2 with Technic 1200s would you wait to see if NI do a Z4 or get this???

 

Sure, oversampling is something that can be done internally, independently of audio i/o.

 

this all does not matter when the d/a conversion (what the xlrs are givin out) is crap. for example the d/a conversion on s2/s4 is crap, also the d/a conversion of a djm800 is crap.
don't know why native didn't put a simple spdif out besides the symetric (analog) Outputs. so one could use for example a RME ADI-2 external converter - the difference is immense!
for example if you use the spdif out on a djm800 with a proper external device - the sun goes up - absolute great Sound.
a friend of mine and me are working actually (from time to time) on a project to put spdif out on a Audio 8 device.
i just hate These unecessary (bad) d/a conversions which gets back a/d converted in a mixer and then back d/a at ist Output. this is quite weird since we all Play digital Music and modern Mixers got spdif Inputs ?!

 

Daniel is right. This only comes to the quality of the DACs.
I first noticed when I was playing back to back with a friend on CDJs and I was using the CDJs as well but as sound cards through USB. I noticed that my tracks were not as wide in bass. not so rich. We were both using beatport mp3 files. After that day I started testing at home using different audio sources loaded with the same audio file A. CDJ on USB stick, B. CDJ as souncard and traktor, C. Audio 6 on RCA output, D. Komplete Audio 6 SPDIF output to the DJM900 digital inputs, E. The DJM900 as a soundcard.
From these combinations I got better sound from A and D.
It is not a big difference, it may be a small percentage of improvement but certainly can be noticed by anyone concerned about audio and when there is big amplification such as in clubs, differences are more noticeable.
So my conclusion is both NI and Pioneer (when as soundcard) do not deliver as good audio as they do with CDJs or as DJM900 DACs.
This is the reason why I still continue to use CDJs as my main DJing device and since Rekordbox 3 it has been way more pleasant. I don´t like to be the guy with less audio quality. Again this is a small difference.
I´ve never used RME but it is said that they beat all other choices even CDJs. I have also heard the soundcards on the A&H Xone DB2 and DB4 bring much better sound than NIs.
Yes I would love to see NI more worried about the sound quality their software products end up with. Currently I only use Traktor at home because of this. If I had an RME would be back to Traktor may be.

 

Yes, which was basically my original question/point. In my experience so far NI conversion (which for our purposes is nearly exclusively DAC) has been fairly average so far, so I was wondering if there had been any improvement in actual sound quality (not numbers) or info on such in this new box. I ecently upgraded to RME and the difference from K6, Traktor DJ2 etc is quite noticeable.

 

what RME did you pick, sparky?

if it's the babyface, how are you hooking it up to a club's mixer?

i've seen the output is XLR which would require a special XLR-RCA cable, or maybe there's another way?

are you happy with its results?

thanks!

 

Yes, a Babyface. It comes with 2 sets of breakout cables, one is XLR as you say, the other RCA. And before anyone brings up un/balanced, for such a short cable run ie from breakout cable to mixer in the difference is absolutely negligible. I also have a bunch of XLR-RCA cables I soldered myself for another work project but haven't tried them yet.

While we're talking about the Babyface and other usable boxes ie Duet, IMHO the breakout cable thing is horrible, messy and dangerous. I've written to RME and Apogee about it and of course the more people who do so the better - I'm sure in many cases they're simply not aware of the potential market and applications. Funnily enough when I did so I used the K6 as an example of what I thought was a very well laid-out piece of hardware....not quite so much the innards though.

 

Hello there. I'm using TP with external mixer for about 2 years now. This year I have tried the S4 MK2 to simplify the setup, but was disappointed with quality in build, sound and mic handling. I just do some party gigs from time to time and have gone back to the X1/F1. So recently I bought a babyface for my good ol' Xone 22. Sound and handling of the IO is very good, but I can't get the output 3/4 to work with TP yet. Routing is set to ASIO with 1/2 deck 1 and 3/4 deck 2, but signals are always on both channels. Do I need to remap with Totalmix in some way?. Any help would be good, thanks.

 

Yes you'll need to set Totalmix up correctly. I'm guessing you're mixing externally, right? How do you have the cables configured?

 

Yes external mixing with the Xone. I have the breakout cable with XLR and connecting line out with RCA Adapter to channel 1 and headphone out 3/4 with RCA Adapter to channel 2 of the mixer.

 

Ok I'll check tomorrow and ket you know. Meanwhile you should look around Totalmix, it's not hard and very powerful.

 

Read the Manual and played a bit around yesterday, slow learning. I think the whole System will be clicking with me in some time.

Seems like the Software playback channels can be routed to any Hardware Output by highlighting the specific Output. Then just raise the fader of the channel that I want to be heard, so I will try that.

 

Oh God how embarassing... even a child could have fixed that. It was really that simple, klick on one of the outputs and just turn up the wanted channel. Well 20 years of living with computer hadn't prepared me for that, it HAD to be more complex I guess.

 

digital to analog converters of the sound card are important bits....... its not just about how many kHz......... that's why cdj and allen and heath sound much better than s4/s2 and probly s8.....

that's why all the big djs not using them except on pr advertisement for ni....

build quality is another problem I have with ni hardware product.....they are poor compare to competition and since they stopped playing balls with hardware makers all the cool controllers are made mainly for serato.... a big mistake by ni...

 

I am not quite over the experience with the S4 (still have to sell it, will make a big loss of that...). I mean the software handling and layout is superb. So is the X1 and together with the F1 it's some of the best modular setups on the market.

But if you want give us AIO and the whole package, that is a different level. You want to compete with the big boys like Pio, Numark or Vestax, you better bring top notch toys to the game. And that's where NI failed in my opinion, so they should have stuck with midi hardware only. The first looks of the S8 don't have a different feel. only shinier and bigger. Great controlling but the nuts and bolts will not be on par, sadly.