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Thunderbolt - worth the hype?

puremetal33

puremetal33

...beware the Hammer of Thor
Apr 8, 2012
886
1,043
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San Diego, CA
#1
Hello all,

I have been recording into Reaper (using the Ampeg SVX plugin from Amplitube for modeling) via an M Audio M-Track (USB 3.0)

Doing some reading I'm intrigued by the idea of getting a Thunderbolt interface since I'm still experiencing some latency issues with USB 3.0

So, my question here is: Is it worth the additional cost to get a Thunderbolt interface? I'm running a Mac Mini with the 2.6 gig i5 processor and 8GB of RAM.

Looking at something like the Zoom TAC-2R (don't need more than 2 inputs anyway).

Thanks in advance for any helpful suggestions.
 
#2
USB isn't issue. RME interfaces quite fast. They use USB with RME engineered proprietary core.

Even USB 2.0 is wide enough for 16+ multitrack recording. Usage of foreign language is very complicated for me when I explain such things but I try. I'm gonna make lots of grammar mistakes :)

Every interface has two parameters of speed actually. Imagine a very wide vertical pipe. If you throw a little stone in its hole it fall from the other end in 1 second (for example). If you throw a couple of stones they fall... after 1 second. Three? 1 second. 10? 1 second. Quantity doesn't matter until this pipe is wide enough and you can throw stones simultaneously. In digital audio systems you always have such wide pipe because if it isn't wide enough for transfer all data it just can't work properly.

Your data from the M-Track in the USB 3.0 channel is a little stone in a huge pipe. So if you change one huge pipe (USB 3.0) for another incredibly huge pipe (Thunderbolt) what do you achieve for your little stone? Nothing.

But there is another option. One pipe can be shorter than another. And when we speak about digital audio it's more important than wideness. Obviously our stone came thru 1 meter pipe faster than 2 meters pipe and no matter how wide each of this pipes if both of them wide enough for one stone.

We've had this situation already. Technically USB 2.0 is "wider" than Firewire 400 (480 Mbps vs 400 Mbps). But the FW400 interface is "shorter" in our terms. So FW400 was a standard for professional audio for a long time.

Thunderbolt is "shorter" than USB and FW actually. But not because of the 10 Gbps bitrate :) And there are no strong relations between bitrate and latency. And it doesn't decrease latency proportionally at all. But 10 Gbps looks beautifully in marketing brochures :)

And the most important things are design and engineering. A well engineered interface can be fast and stable with USB. A well engineered interface can be faster with Thunderbolt. But poor engineered interface with Thunderbolt can be slower than a good USB one.
 
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#3
Dima B said:
USB isn't issue. RME interfaces quite fast. They use USB with RME engineered proprietary core.
Click to expand...

He mentioned an M-Audio interface, not an RME one.

All the same, I agree with @Dima B on this one in that a USB 3.0 interface is likely to be just fine for most non-commercial needs. If you aren't recording more than 16 tracks at once and are getting audible latency, I would like at computer issues before interface ones. I have a similar computer (late 2012 Mac Mini, 2.3ghz quad core i7, 32gb RAM, so a little more horsepower, but yours should be more than sufficient for basic recording tasks), and haven't experienced any issues whatsoever with latency.
 
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#6
I haven't actually seen any audio interfaces that actually utilize USB-3 out on the market?

Thunderbolt would be good for high bandwidth applications like video editing.

I've heard rumors that Apple may be getting more friendly with USB, like USB-C. If true it would sure make it easier for people to pick a standard interface to work on PC or Apple.
 
#8
seamonkey said:
I haven't actually seen any audio interfaces that actually utilize USB-3 out on the market?
Click to expand...
Invalid Link Removed 394 channels via MADI.

seamonkey said:
I've heard rumors that Apple may be getting more friendly with USB, like USB-C. If true it would sure make it easier for people to pick a standard interface to work on PC or Apple.
Click to expand...
They want to force Thunderbolt obviously but consumers have tons of USB devices. Apple has to consider it. BTW some premium PC motherboards have Thunderbolt ports.

Anyway I think my next interface will be UA Apollo (Thunderbolt).
 
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#9
Thunderbolt will die much faster than firewire did.

Maybe it's of use for some studios, but USB3ff. is more than enough for most audio applications.
Just look at the company that tried to make thunderbolt a standard interface - Apple - their new macbook just has one single input: USB 3.1.
I have a Mac with a thunderbolt interface but I wouldn't even consider a thunderbolt interface for free. I have the earlier Apple 27" Display. I would have to invest hundreds of Euros to connect a second device to my thunderbold port.
It's not worth it for nearly every purpose I could think of.
 
#10
Thunderbolt interfaces have a much lower potential latency than anything but PCIe (which it ties with). Your interface is USB 2.0. not 3.0 (wouldn't make a difference though). That being said, you want to check your buffer sizes first. Drop your buffer size to 64 in Reaper "Reaper->Preferences->Audio->Device->Request block size:" If it pops and clicks, raise it to 128. Pretty much any decent interface will give usable settings while only using one or two channels of processing. The Zoom will definitely lower your latency but, you probably don't need it.
 
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#11
kbr said:
Thunderbolt interfaces have a much lower potential latency than anything but PCIe (which it ties with). Your interface is USB 2.0. not 3.0 (wouldn't make a difference though). That being said, you want to check your buffer sizes first. Drop your buffer size to 64 in Reaper "Reaper->Preferences->Audio->Device->Request block size:" If it pops and clicks, raise it to 128. Pretty much any decent interface will give usable settings while only using one or two channels of processing. The Zoom will definitely lower your latency but, you probably don't need it.
Click to expand...

Cheers, I will try that. Block size was still at the default 512.
 

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