Looking for a Replacement for my 896 Original

[mweiss]

Since MOTU has abandoned its products and I can no longer get my 896 repaired, I am looking to buy into another company's hardware--one that isn't going to abandon the customer after a few years. I'm also looking for a more reliable interface, with the features and sonic performance of the Original 896.

Can anyone suggest a good equivalent to the 896, with 8 phantom powered mic preamps, very clean, low noise preamps, top quality DACs and RELIABLE electronics that don't crap out after a couple of years' use? Obviously MOTU is a midrange product with below average support, so I would like to step up to a product with similar features and better support behind it.

Trying to stay under a grand if possible and willing to consider previously-owned gear as an option.

[kgdrum]

I had the original 896,I actually think 12 years is a great run for gear.
I worked in HighEnd Hi-FI for 11 years,when you get an older discontinued piece of gear to repair,there's often other problems besides the obvious when you're trying repair the unit.
The term " opening a can of worms" is often applicable.
To expect a company to keep stocking parts that they don't use anymore for a piece that's been updated 2 times, or buy if they can find the part(not in bulk) would cost more for the parts and the repair than you'd be comfortable paying for,after 12 years caps can be gone etc...The reality is the repair would cost more than the unit is worth now.
MOTU can't justify ordering parts for a 12 year old product that they rarely have tech support calls for anymore.
Honestly I don't think you can really blame MOTU for not having parts for the unit 12 years later,this is more common than you probably think.
I drive an old Honda Civic,I can't walk into a Honda dealer and get parts for it,it's too old.

With that being said,I replaced my 896 with a RME FF800,it's been wonderful in 7 years I've only had to replace the power supply(summer 2011)
I prefer the FF over the original 896 and you can get the FF used for much less than your price range target.
Good Luck,
KG

[Agent of Random]

I am looking to buy into another company's hardware--one that isn't going to abandon the customer after a few years.

You may want to do some research on this, because from my experience MOTU's repair policy is pretty generous and may actually beat or at least be the same as most competing manufacturers in the price range.

Heck, AVID doesn't even make drivers for the Mbox 1 anymore, let alone repair it! and Apple refused to service one of my older MBP's that was barely 5 years old. That's what I call abandonment.

If you do find a manufacturer that is competitive with motu price-wise that will guarantee repair services for an infinite period I sure hope you will share it here, because I'd like to know!

[mweiss]

I guess I'm living in a different world, with my 30+ year old (and still working perfectly) hi-fi gear, which includes preamps, equalizers made in the 1970s and power amps made in the 1980s. I have older tube gear, too, which I have been able to maintain nicely for half a century.

I'm perturbed when I buy something so costly as the 896 and find that it's more of a rental fee for a limited period, rather than a lifetime of usefulness. I reckon I'll be passing my hi-fi system to my daughter when I pass on and she'll get many years enjoyment out of it too. This concept of short lifespan electronics does not sit well with me.

That said, I looked into FocusRite, RME and others.. the prices and lack of inputs and decent metering were turn offs.

I ended up using my credit limit in BillMeLater and buying a MOTU896mk3 Hybrid. It's a mixed bag though. Whenever the CUEMix is routing an input to the MAIN outs, it's very noisy. There's a buzzing sound that sounds like harmonics from a switching power supply mixing with digital clock signals. When I turn off the routing and just play audio from the computer's FW interface, the output is dead silent. I mean DEAD silent, like shorted input on the mixer--even with the pot maxed out, I hear nothing, unless program material is present. MOTU certainly improved the output amplifiers.

As far as the inputs, I'm not so sure. Forget about unbalanced input signals.. Buzz and switching artifacts galore. But with balanced inputs, they are reasonably quiet.

In my shop, I put it on a Tektronix SG505 ultra low distortion sine wave generator and AA501 Distortion Analyzer. I measured about .01% THD. Much of it was noise. A-weighted, the figure improved to .003%. So I looked at the output on a HP 3585A Spectrum Analyzer. At -79dB there is a 60Hz spike. At -83dB there is a 180Hz spike. The rest is pretty quiet. This was measured by applying input and using the MOTU's mixer to route it to the output so I could see the cumulative of ADC-->DAC performance.

I measured the frequency and square wave response, too. Square wave response was good to excellent--about the best I've seen from a DAC.
Frequency response in the 192KHz clock rate was useful. Actually pretty flat to past 80KHz. At lower sample rates, the response didn't roll off until 1KHz below Nyquist limit. For instance, flat to 21KHz at 44.1KHz clock rate. Alias artifacts appear above that frequency. But the unit's performance is what I would consider good to excellent in that regard.

Strangely, I cannot used RightMark Audio Analyzer to test this particular MOTU unit. Unlike my 896 Original, which ran RMAA reliably and gave about 114dB s/n on the reports, the mk3 causes RMAA to crash with a memory error. I tried three different versions, including the current RMAA and they all crash when the mk3 is connected to the computer.

The use of a FW800 (9-pin) connector with no 9-6 adapters in the box was a problem. I had to locate a 9-6 cable just to hook it up in the studio. I have more adapters and cables on order now. My laptop has the 4 pin FW and as yet, I have no cable for that and await testing it for portable use.

[HCMarkus]

Interesting report. Thank you for sharing your test results.