Output Winner:RME
Input Winner:Apooge (That hooked me a lot)

RME is rock stable.  Best drivers, period. especially for pc. they make their own from scratch. they still support and update drivers for products they discontinued decades ago. Plus totalmix is a game changer. I have 3 rme interfaces, adi2 pro fs r, babyface (original), and HDSP 9632.

I’ve owned all of these. I work at Sweetwater so get to test them extensively. The Neumann MT48 is far and away the best sounding converter and interface overall.  The preamps are not adding any transformer or tube style harmonic saturation like I normally prefer from my BAE preamp but they still sound incredible.  I normally like using an RND RNHP headphone amp, but the MT48 has one of the best sounding headphone amps I have used.

When it comes to the best A/D converters for music, I think Apoge is the best for my taste. Yes, the Neumann is a touch (maybe 10%) more detailed and more “natural” sounding. But the Apogee has a fullness, breadth, musicality, a roundness that sounds very, very beautiful and is still EXTREMELY high-resolution. Since we make music and don't measure speakers, I find the Apogee much more suitable.

Thanks for this! I have been on the fence about upgrading my Apollo Twin X. Like you, I love the workflow and the plugins. My main reason to upgrade would be for noticeable ad/da improvement, but I think from your testing these other units, the difference is so marginal and subjective. I’m gonna keep my Apollo Twin X for a while longer, and see what UA does on the next Apollo Twin and X4 release. Thanks again!

10:56 11:01 11:06 11:11 rme
11:20 11:25 11:30 11:35 apogee
11:43 11:48 11:53 11:58 mt48
12:07 12:12 12:17 12:22 x4

Fire Video as usual fam! If you're a person that travels a lot or want to be as portable as possible think about the RME Babyface Pro FS as well. It's Bus Powered and has INSANE stability and low latency on both Mac and PC. It replaced my Apollo X4 due to stability issues on Windows and it's size when traveling. It's also half the price of these. Personally if I drop around $2k it'll be to upgrade my Rack Mount Interface in my home studio.

love the vid, just throwing this out there, those jacks that accept both xlr and 1/4" inputs are commonly called combo jacks. Just in case you do more of these, which I hope you do, maybe this tid bit will help you out. So I couldn't help but notice that all of the interfaces you reviewed were all desktop units, and none from the rack mount form factor, which, for under 2G it should be pretty easy to have some really top notch rack units in there, and a lot of them will have a lot more onboard preamps, commonly 8 mic preamps on the 1U rack unit interfaces. And there are a lot of good units like that from manufacturers like MOTU, Presonus, Focusrite, UA, Apogee, Lynx, um.....even Behringer, yeah i know, but they are slept on and not really that bad. I've gotten great recordings from an X32 more times than I can count. Heck, for less than 2G, you can get a x32 now, and a bunch of other digital mixing consoles that have built in USB audio interfaces that enable you to get really high simultaneously recording track counts an)d a lot more including DAW control and a live digital console for performance. I feel like your review is aimed at producers that are generally doing a lot of VST's and maybe recording a guitar or bass guitar one at a time, and then doing some vocal overdubs, maybe trying to get a few keyboards in to the computer, but for the people that are trying to record whole bands playing the song live, (which is 100% necessary for the right feel if you ask me, if you overdub everything it will loose something, every time, I wish that it didn't but it does) they are going to need at least 8 mic inputs simultaneously and ideally the ability to make 4 separate headphone mixes, one for each player. At l east 2 separate headphone mixes, one for the vocalist and one for the band, or one for the drummer that has the click and one for the rest of the band. These are the choices you'll have to make if you don't have the ability to have more than 2 headphone mixes. The nice thing about that RME that you showed, is that it has the ability to use all of it's outputs as separate headphone mixes, you would just have to hook it up to a decent headphone amp. And if you add more inputs and outputs via one of the digital inputs like the ADAT lightpipe input, then you can use all of those outputs as well. The mixing app RME includes in their software is really great for tracking live bands, but let's be real, RME is a top tier interface manufacturer. They ain't no slouch. Having said that, an X32 which you can pick up for around 1400 used these days, also has the ability to have 8 separate stereo headphone mixes because it has like 16 XLR outputs right on the back of it. That is not including your main XLR outs or the 8 quarter inch aux in and outs that you can use to route effects in your studio. Anyone that tells you that you can't get great sounding recordings from something like a x32 is just lying to you. The difference between these units is honestly miniscule, and more often than not, has more to do with how much they cost or how much the person telling you about it actually spent on it. The RME is rock solid and their software is highly capable and you totally get what you pay for, but it isn't going to sound that much better than an x32, which input for input is probably the cheapest option, I mean you get 32 simultaneous inputs and 16 simultaneous outputs with an x32, with a 32x32 usb interface with it, that means you can record 32 inputs all at the same time into your DAW, all for the low price of 2G as of today. And you get an actual physical console that you can use either for your studio or live, you can use to take with you to record live also. They even have an expansion card that allows you to record and playback 32 tracks at a time without a computer straight to an external hard drive or dual SD cards. You can just keep some  big SD cards in there and anytime anywhere, just hit record and it's recording whatever is playing through the board, all multitrack without a computer attached. That's just too cool if you ask me. So if you want to buy into the UA Apollo ecosystem and get the benefit of it's onboard DSP so that you can track through their plugins in real time, then by all means, do that. And that might be the best option especially for the desktop producers out there who are just recording vocal overdubs every now and then and also oing a lot of other production work with beat machines, keyboards, and VST instruments. The Neumann is definitely geared towards someone that wants the highest quality inputs and AD/DA for the money but what brings it down is the fact that the RME has awesome converters on it too. They are known for that, Neumann makes great microphones and is brand new in the interface world, this is their first offering of a music interface, keep that in mind. RME has been making only audio interfaces and ADDA converters. That is all they do. And they are really good at it. So I wouldn't sleep on that interface, but it's probably going to shine for someone that wants to add an additional preamp with more inputs and outputs to it, and use it as a desktop controller too. Just my 2 cents or 26 or whatever cents...Peace.

Apogee Fam Over Here!

Thanks for this brother. I have been looking for a review for Neumann vs Apogee for sometime now and this was insightful

Hey much appreciated on these videos and reviews just ordered my mt48

OOOOH I was waiting for this comparison, Great review! Have to try them all out.

Great review 👏🏻👏🏻

Thank you, bro! I really enjoyed the comparison. I liked the Newman and the Apollo. I would not know which one to choose; they are both great. The Apogee sounds great, too.
C'ya around, greetings from Rocksario, Argentina

this was fire bro. thanks!

I’ve had all the brands. Hands down RME IS KING 👑

Man, thank you, great video and a new subscription! Happy New Year from Berlin /Germany! (Probably going for the Berlin Neumann MT48 tho . . .)

best video I've come across for a general understanding of these interfaces

Well I beg to differ, RME is very clear and controlled noise with great width.  Other interface seems to add color to them but they also seems to distort sound quality. RME for me wins it. Thank for the vide

Thank you for spending so much time to put this comparison together.  What is the song you are using to demo the interfaces?