Switching from RME to PRISM? Watch this first!!

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:35 Sound Quality & Differences
2:23 Headphone Amp
3:11 Prism Driver
5:22 Conclusion

If you have any questions or video suggestions, let me know in the comments!!

[CaryMillerOfficial]

I have owned both an RME Fireface 800 (which was my primary ADDA for like 10 years), and a Prism Titan. Now Currently I use the Titan with an MDIO card for PTHDX so I'm running it via Diglink to PCIe for PTHX Native. I much prefer the Prism, but RME makes incredible stuff for the money. If I wasn't using Pro Tools Ultimate, I would probably have bough an RME HDSPe MADI 128-channel MADI PCI Express Card and SPL Madison converters. I feel the Prism stuff is best suited for PTHD (or Pro Tools Ultimate, whatever you want to call it), in order to take advantage of lower latency. The Prism IS better. Maybe the best ADDA on the market right now...but I don't think it's the best solution for most DAWs that are not PTHX.

[M.W.]

Ok, thank you for the confirmation that I'll be sticking with RME for life!

[psyderdj]

My experience was that I felt the songs had more depth to them with more details in the mid and high range. Bass was more tight and easier to understand what was going on. It was like wearing a beanie hat with RME and then when I took the hat off I could hear more detail in the Prism, was enough of a change to hear the difference but was not so much night and day. But I agree the drivers compared to RME are not great, it's the trade off for the quality of the sound.

[rylandweet]

I’d like to hear a vocal recorded with the prism going through its converter compared to a vocal that goes through an RME

[dionmonti]

Get a Madiface USB or any other RME MADI interface and hook-up any MADI converter you like. In my case I use a Antilope Goliath Which has horrible drivers but this does not matter as its just used as a stand alone converter over MADI. All the benefits of RME drivers but with Antelope conversion. Great setup I can recommend.

[PaulieDC]

In all of the components in my DAW rig, the RME Babyface and its Win drivers have been so stellar, there's zero reason to even ponder switching out IMO. We all have other areas in our rigs that need attention, lol! If you are buying new then the prism vs RME discussion is important of course. At this point I am committed to RME and Cubase and it works incredibly well, so I'm focusing elsewhere... such as learning orchestration way better!

[BpackAudio]

Great video!

Since Studio One 6.2 my Lyra 2's drivers are again stopping production. 2019 Prism had to send me a beta that corrected some things, but to be honest, it's never worked great with Studio One. The dropout/garbled audio issue when bouncing/mixdown has persisted since the day I bought it. Currently Prism and Presonus are working to figure out a solution to my new issue and the dropouts, but I'm pretty much over it. So frustrating.

Shame too. The Prism sounds great. But what good is it when almost any DAW update cripples functionality?

RME ADI 2/4 Pro se might be the solution. I'd much rather have stability over a small bump in quality.

[mruebsam]

Ich have the other way around behind me...
Let me explain. We have since quite a while 3 Prism Orpheus (daisy chained via FireWire). Unfortunately in the middle of a recording session one of them just broke. Within a weekend we compared a merging Horus, our prism orpheus, a lynx aurora (n) and a RME m32 AD pro (these are the new AVB AD and DA converters). We were shocked how good the RME were. All of those were really close. Most of the time we were not able to hear differences. Sometimes we thought that the Prism has a more relaxed body. Bit it was impossible to say which one was really better, . So we decided for the RME. This was my first contact to RME. In the studio we still worked with the Prisms (btw. Orpheus has the same converters and circuities als the Titan) and for location recording we used the RME. Then we made an upgrade in ou computer system. Apple dropped FireWire Support. So the Prism didn't work anymore from one day to the next 😞 Maybe this is the time to talk about the Prism drivers. In my opinion they are horrible. Especially when daisy chaining the Orpheus. I cannot tell you how many times I had to reboot the computer and plug in and out the prisms over the last year. It was just horrible. Our current solution looks like this. We have a cheap RME Digiface USB with 4 ADATs I/Os (and a RME Digiface AVB for the high track count). The prism orpheus are connect to the RME DigiFace USB via ADAT and it works just perfectly. However there is on major Drawback. And again it's about drivers....In standalone / ADAT mode the Prisms just work on a set sample rate (which is 96 kHz at the moment). I f your want to change this to another sample rate you have to find an old computer an rund the Prism Control Applet and reconfigure the Prism. What a pain. In the same time we just got another RME ADI 2 pro fs, which has absolutely no issue in accepting all sample rates... and from my perspective the ADI 2 pro fs sound absolutely transparent.
My conclusion: The prism ADDA converters are good. Very good. But everything around the conversion is "difficult" (a pain in the ass, if you need to work and it's not working right - again and again) . I was really surprised about the audio quality of the newer RME products (m32 ad/da pro series and ADI 2 pro fs) I really like using both right next to each other...

[manfredmustermann]

Finally someone is answering this. I was so long on the hunt for this… converters are a challenging topic

[jdbmusicproducer]

I'm also use studio one and also facing the same issue with my lyra 2 it's very annoying when client sitting with you and want to record something or play production suddenly crackling noise 😖

[alexmagor]

I saw on gearslutz there is a night and day difference by using sharp mode and setting the dc filter to "none" on the RME. I regret not trying this before I sold my RME and am looking to get another one just to try this. Also supposedly you can make it even better by modding the RME to bypass the input DC coupling caps.

[sekritskworl-sekrit_studios]

Could you share any samples? I mean, you talk about depth and soundstage, but I perceive the same on my Orion 32+ Gen 3. But the problem is that it sounds "wet" to me. And that means that when mixing, it can limit options (depending upon how it sounds).

So, I wonder how it sounds.

[Truth]

Prism Atlas on Mac (i7 Mini with Big Sur then Studio Max with Monterey, and now Studio Ultra with Ventura) over the last 3 years.... Rock solid, not a single driver hiccup. I came from an Apollo X6 (which also has great stable drivers on Mac), and sound wise the Atlas is just prettier, more engaging and more pleasurable sounding mixes (when run through the DA-AD analog loop). Haven't given the audio recording latency a good test yet though, but I do play a lot of VST's in Logic Pro using Komplete and using Logic's Low Latency mode, I have no issues with the response time.

[Nedvio]

I don't have RME, but I was looking for that best possible DA sound in both speakers and headphones. So I kind of found Prism Sound Lyra. But if you say that I have to heavily lower the buffer size.. Man that makes me think of not buying it. Is this needed because of some heavy processing for the sake of better quality or is it just lazyness on Prism Sound side of not working hard enough on their products... Honestly I want a good audio interface, but especially DA and headphone amp is the most important thing for me. Routing and recording is secondary..

[marcvino]

RME has updated the chips and headphone amp on the RME ADI 2/4 in 2023 and also the Interface UFX III 3.0. I wonder if these are better than the prism. I am going to upgrade to the newest RME but would go with prism if it's better

[bowuf]

Be curious how you would compare the latest 2/4 Pro SE to the Lyra.

[rainstar]

hello there ! i need advice, i am planning to hook up "prism callia " DAC with UCX II to get great sound of prism DAC via my adams, and also i can connect my few hardware gears with ucx II and still i will be able to get prism sound DAC quality, how you see such setup ? bettr than Lyra 2, or it is just stupid idea. ( because in almost same price i could get more IN and OUTs Than Lyra 2 & still be getting sound prsim quality )

[dafxtone]

Hi, what's would your next choice so ? Forssell ?

[dylantlop]

Hey! I’m also someone who plans to purchase a new professional grade interface for my studio. Like you, use a lot of midi instruments and additionally prioritize stability and buffer size above all. Given the parameters, do you think something like the UFX III would be the optimal choice? Im weighing against Lynx and Prism currently.

[sancessounds]

How is the headphone amp in the prysm? I am deciding between these two currently. Mainly a headphone mixer with Audeze LCDX's