Focusrite takes Interface Shootout blind test to New York

Focusrite has moved its Interface Shootout blind listening test to New York City, battling out Thunderbolt™ interfaces Focusrite Clarett 8PreX, Apogee Ensemble and Universal Audio Apollo 8p.

This third Interface Shootout took place at IIWII, a New York recording studio offering a large recording space as well as high-quality analogue recording. The reviewers were FOH engineer Fela Davis, producer/engineer Denis Orynbekov, producer/engineer Billy Perez and producer/engineer James Frazee.

Fela, Denis, Billy and James listened to Clarett 8PreX, Ensemble and Apollo 8p recordings of Gotta Miss Someone by Olivia Trummer, which were also used for the first and second Interface Shootouts. For the third Interface Shootout in New York, Clarett 8PreX, Ensemble and Apollo 8p were named A, B and C respectively.

I just really like how the vocal is sitting in the mix with A, and all the other instruments are just falling around her, I really dig A.

said Fela.

The Focusrite brings out the natural sounds of acoustic instruments, On the recording, A definitely made sense to me as far as capturing the real instruments.

said Denis.

The Clarett 8PreX 26×28 interface offers up to 119dB dynamic range, superbly low noise, 24/192 conversion and eight specially designed mic preamps with an analogue ‘Air’ effect. Its ultra-low round-trip latency simplifies workflows and enables plug-ins to be used in real time.