Hercules 16/12 FW: Affordable, Professional-Quality Multichannel Audio

Behavior At 24 Bits/48 KHz

Recording in 24 bits at a sampling rate of 48 kHz means moving into a professional mode where we can hope for performance that's clearly beyond the capabilities of consumer products. The results here depend to some degree on the adjustments used during the test: you can favor signal-to-noise ratio or distortion. In the first case, distortion increases a little, and in the second signal-to-noise ratio diminishes slightly. The results we show here are based on optimization of SNR:

  • Frequency response (20 Hz - 20 kHz) : +0.02, -0.28 dB
  • Weighted SNR : 103.2 dB(A)
  • Distortion : 0.011%
  • Stereo separation : 103.8 dB

Frequency response :Frequency response is nearly identical to what we got at 44 kHz - that is, excellent - but even slightly better.

Noise level : Noise was very low and didn't increase in the treble, which is very positive.

Dynamic capacity : In 24 bits, dynamic capacity made a leap forward and was really very good.

Distortion : Since we had optimized the signal-to-noise ratio, THD was a little high (for this class of equipment!) but still far from being audible.

Intermodulation : Two zeros after the decimal point - a very good result

Stereo separation : As the results at 44 kHz suggested, stereo crosstalk was practically nil. No comment necessary!

  • dr3tri
    Article does not tell whether this can do MIDI merge between it's two MIDI IN or not. Could you tell it in here, at comments section? Anyone?
    Reply