It having only been out for a month, and yet to be reviewed, I was quite nervous when I ordered the Lynx LT-USB. I usually prefer to let others test new products and only buy when I can be sure of their reliability and performance. Many will be aware of the negative press the LT-FW has received – would the LT-USB also be fraught with problems? Could a professional audio interface really function ‘professionally’ using the USB protocol?
Although I work mostly in my studio with a solid rack-mounted DAW, I do also record on location, which inevitably means using a laptop, and can present a problem when trying to integrate it with the Aurora 16. The LT-FW was out of the question because of it’s reported unreliability, and although the AES-16e would have been the ideal choice for a desktop DAW, using it with a laptop would be quite impractical. Should Lynx’s USB card function as advertised, it would provide an ideal means of swapping between the laptop and my main DAW. So, after I read how well RME’s Fireface UFX has been performing, I decided to give the LT-USB a go, and with just one mouse click, I had ordered the Aurora 16 and the LT-USB.
The LT-USB must be installed into the Aurora’s L-Slot Expansion Port, which is easily done by removing the top cover, installing the provided standoff post, slotting it in and screwing away. There is a jumper setting on the Aurora that corrects the current draw for an Aurora with an LT-USB – make sure you take this step! Also, be careful when lining up the multi-pin connector on the back of the LT-USB to the L-Slot connector on the Aurora main board – it all feels very fragile! The manual says that the PCB ‘may need to be flexed’ for the L-Slot connector pins to line up correctly – fortunately, that wasn’t the case here. After verifying that the Aurora had Firmware version 24 (you must have 24 or later before you install the LT-USB), I switched the unit on, and saw the green light through the slits in the Aurora top cover, indicating that installation was successful.
I downloaded the latest drivers and software from the Lynx website, installed them with no hassles and before I knew it, I was up and running.
I am not reviewing the Aurora 16 itself here, but I would like to mention a few things. Firstly, wow! I knew from reviews that this was a world class A/D/A converter, but I wasn’t expecting such an immediately noticeable improvement in monitoring quality. Stereo imaging is superb, and everything just sounds clearer – I can hear reverb tails and delays as I have never done before. There are a few niggles though…
I bought the unit from the USA (strong AUD at the moment made this decision a no-brainer) and soon discovered that there is no facility for voltage switching on the unit – the only way to achieve this is to swap out the transformer in the Aurora – something I know nothing about (not to mention, such a move would void the warranty). In fairness to Lynx, they do make units for 240V mains outlets, and had I bought it from an overpriced Australian supplier, I wouldn’t be writing this, but I can’t for the life of me think why they wouldn’t include some sort of voltage switching mechanism on the Aurora itself – a fairly standard feature in the pro audio world. Perhaps even more of an annoyance than the additional $100 I had to spend buying a step-down transformer, is having another bulky power supply to try and hide away!
Second gripe – the Aurora Remote Control software. Whereas it gets the job done, it seems unintuitive and slightly limited in it’s functionality. For instance, it is not possible to setup two separate stereo headphone mixes which monitor the analogue inputs, as well as a stereo monitor mix. In order to achieve two unique headphone mixes for tracking purposes, they each would have to be mono. It would also be nice to be able to route the analogue inputs to any of the outputs – this is currently only possible on outputs 1-4. Whereas these are not huge issues, it would be nice to have software that was a little more elegant and not so seemingly dated and limiting.
Back to the LT-USB. My main DAW on which I am testing the unit is detailed below:
Gigabyte EX-58 DS-4
Intel Core i7 920
4GB Corsair RAM
x3 Western Digital Caviar Black HDDs
Windows 7 Professional, 32-bit
Sonar X1b
I opened up a project in Sonar that I was currently mixing, which contained 58 stereo audio tracks and about as many very CPU-intensive plugins (most of them from Waves) – I didn’t have the patience to go through and count them all exactly! Also running on the project were three instances of Drumagog 5, which were all triggering samples from BFD 2 in real time. I ambitiously tried to play back the project at 1ms buffer (which equates to 52 samples in the 48k/24bit project) and of course failed. I opened up the LT-USB control panel and tried to lower the buffer size, only to discover that in order to accomplish this, Sonar had to be closed. This is more annoying than you might first think, especially on large projects that take a while to open up. I hope this issue will be addressed in a future update. So after closing Sonar, I changed the buffer to 2ms, 192 samples. This time, the project played fine most of the time, with the occasional pop or click. At 4ms, 211 samples, playback was seamless.
I then wanted to see whether or not I could hit a limit when mixing big projects where latency wasn’t a concern. I created a new project at 48/24, this time setting the latency to 1267 samples. I had 201 mono audio tracks playing without a glitch, each with the Prochannel PC76, EQ and tube saturation enabled. I gave up at that point – if you have more than 201 tracks in your project, then maybe it’s time to rethink how you work!
My main concern, however, was latency whilst monitoring in real time through soft-synths and effects. Performance in this regard turned out to be excellent. At 52 samples, I managed to record 49 tracks of audio simultaneously, each with the VX64 plugin inserted and input echo activated, and each track having a send to a buss with the Sonitus Reverb inserted – all monitoring in real time. At the same latency, I was playing the VSL orchestral strings patch from Kontakt 4, as well as recording 37 of the previously mentioned tracks. Performance like this is simply amazing for a USB interface – so far, it seems it was worth the wait for the LT-USB to be released…
So the LT-USB had passed with flying colours on a desktop PC designed for audio work, but how would it perform with an off-the-shelf laptop?
My laptop is a standard HP Pavilion DV8 – Core i7 720QM, 4GB RAM, 7200rpm HD, Windows 7 Home, 64-bit, running Sonar X1b, 64-bit.
Installation of drivers and software was, as before, a breeze, and performance of the LT-USB was impressive. I should mention at this point that I haven’t tweaked anything on the laptop or the OS to gain better performance – WiFi was enabled and connected, AVG Internet Security was running, and all the resource-eating eye candy that Windows 7 has to offer was still enabled. There is no doubt that I could have squeezed better performance out of the system, but I wanted to see how the LT-USB performed under less-than-ideal conditions.
The test project was also at 48k/24bit, and at 192 samples, could play back 46 stereo audio tracks, each with the LP64_EQ inserted in the FX Bin (those familiar with Sonar will know that this plugin is one of the more CPU-hungry plugins bundled with Sonar). At 384 samples, I managed to play back 60 of the aforementioned tracks. Oddly, increasing latency beyond this actually resulted in poorer performance, and it couldn’t handle much below 192. For an off-the-shelf laptop and a USB interface, I’d say that’s pretty darn impressive.
Although I would never mix a project on a laptop, those of you who do may be a little concerned by the 60 track limit I hit. But remember, those were all stereo tracks – an unlikely scenario in a real world mix. Also, every single track had a CPU-intensive plugin inserted, and as I mentioned earlier, I made no effort to set up the laptop better for audio work, with WiFi, anti-virus and 3D graphics all enabled.
In conclusion, the LT-USB has, in my opinion, excelled in all areas in which it was tested. I can see no reason to hesitate to buy this unit, and the Aurora converters are absolutely sensational too! I have to give it 10/10 as I can’t fault the card itself, the only minor downsides I experienced were with the ARC software.
