Audient ASP 800 or 880

[keks]

Hello everyone,
being just a muso and recording artist up to now, I‘m starting to raise some local interest for location recording of singer/songwriter stuff.
My main interface is the ID22 and I tend to like the Audient stuff enough to not think about splurging on all new converters and pres.
Now, initially I bought a Mico to get the track count to at least four, now I‘m looking into those eight channel rack units to get some wiggle room.

Now, the 808 has variable hpf and insert points over the 800, which has none of those.
Would those features be worth spending a grand rather than 700 bucks? All the other inbuilt gadgeretry is, uhm...

Budget is rather tight right now, after we moved and I‘m rebuilding a working modest home studio that I just used for writing or my own demo stuff up to now.
There is no real revenue stream, yet, though there might be a market niche to tap into...

All the best,
the keks

[unitymusic]

Now, the 808 has variable hpf and insert points over the 800, which has none of those.
Would those features be worth spending a grand rather than 700 bucks?

I think if it's worth it or not is a decision you will have to make for yourself, depending on your needs. I personally like the option to track everything with at least a little compression, so the inserts would definitely be worth it to me, if not a deal breaker.

Unless you have mic pre's that you want to use in series, and just use the interface as a converter, in which case it wouldn't matter to me, and I'd save the extra money.

[John Eppstein]

Now, the 808 has variable hpf and insert points over the 800, which has none of those.
Would those features be worth spending a grand rather than 700 bucks?

I think if it's worth it or not is a decision you will have to make for yourself, depending on your needs. I personally like the option to track everything with at least a little compression, so the inserts would definitely be worth it to me, if not a deal breaker.

Unless you have mic pre's that you want to use in series, and just use the interface as a converter, in which case it wouldn't matter to me, and I'd save the extra money.

Insert points can be really handy!

[nobby]

You don't need insert points to track with compression.

Mic pre > compressor > ADC

But I find myself not compressing on the way in now because there's so much headroom in a modern DAW.

I used to track to kind of marginal analog formats, 4 tracks on 1/4" tape, 8 tracks on 1/2" and there would be audible tape noise that the signal had to compete with. Compression was necessary to get a more consistently robust signal to noise ratio.

Now there is no noise floor and 12-18 dB of headroom above the highest peaks.

[unitymusic]

If I'm recording onto tape then headroom and noise floor are major concerns, but with a modern DAW/interface those aren't really anything to worry about if you keep your levels conservative.

I still like a little compression for most things during tracking, because I like to "build a sound" for everything as early as possible.

[keks]

Tanks for your input, guys.
I'll have two inputs on the id22 with insert points for critical parts, so I guess it should be fine to ditch the insert points on the rack unit. I don't foresee myself travelling with 8-10 hardware compressors and those pres/converters in the near nor far future anyway...
(I wish the'd come out with the id44 a year earlier...)

[unitymusic]

I have a main 4-space travel rack that includes three RNC's for utility compression, which is nice because they all fit into one rack unit. There's also a Daking FET II in there, so that already covers 4-7 channels of compression, depending on if I need mono or stereo for any given source. And that only takes up 2U of rack space.

I'm not suggesting that you reconsider your decision, just pointing out that there are options that may be more ergonomical than you might realize.