greetings earthlings today I'm back with a review of a desktop or rack-mountable audio interface /
preamp the arteria 8 pre if you are interested in picking this guy up it will cost you around
$800 like always I'll throw some links down below and in the sake of full disclosure I do need to
let you know that arteria did send me this audio interface for the sake of completing this review
but other than that I am recording at 24-bit 48 kilohertz I am connecting the rode nt1 directly
to the 8 pre 48 volts turned on and my gain set at around 10:30 I will not be doing any
kind of post-processing but I may boost it in post so check the doobly-doo to see what I did
Lee did and now let's talk about what comes in the box that was too loud that was too loud of
course you are going to get the interface you get the rack ears which also function as the tabletop
stands you'll get a USB c2 USBC cable a USB C 2 USB a cable a power supply a Quick Start Guide
and measurements of the actual preamps in your specific unit then as far as the build quality
it feels really well put together it has an all-metal chassis the dials are rubberized
for a really nice grip there is a little bit of wobble to them and the XLR ports also have a tiny
bit of wobble to them as well on the front of the device you will find two XLR combo jacks and
that is because channel 1 and 2 are the only two channels that accept instrument level inputs then
you'll find controls for all eight of the input channels channel 1 and 2 have a source indicator
light to let you know whether it's a mic line or instrument level input you'll then find the gain
dial you have a meter which goes from negative 50 DB up to zero DB of 45 volts phantom power on/off
button for each of the channels a pad button which will be dimly lit when it is turned off it will
be brighter white when it is turned on and when you are on the microphone setting you can hold
the pad button down to end up boosting the gain on that channel and when that is engaged if the
light will be red you'll also find a phase invert button to avoid any kind of phase cancellation and
an instrument button on channels 1 & 2 channels 3 through 8 are the exact same as 1 & 2 except
they exclude the instrument input indicator light or instrument button then in the main section you
will find the speaker volume control and directly beneath that you'll find a mono button so you can
check the phase very easily and a mixed selection button so you can change the source that's being
played through your speakers then you'll find a headphone volume control to control your headphone
volume beneath that you'll find a quarter inch and 8 inch headphone output which is something
that I think every audio interface needs to include then you have a clock button and an
indicator like to let you know what sample rate the interface is currently set to a sync button
which allows you to set the source for your sample rate whether it be the internal whether it be the
external word clock or whether you're using a DAT you have a mode button so you can change between
running this as a USB audio interface or an a dot expansion preamp and lastly you have the arteria
button and if you press this once it will open up the arteria control software or if you hold
it down for a few seconds it functions as a power button then on the back of the device
you'll find the power input which does have a locking nut you'll find the USBC input so you
can connect this to your computer you have a set of a dot optical in and out so you can run this as
an aide at expansion for some other interface or actually run other preamps into this if you want
this to be your dedicated interface you'll find the word clock in and out you'll find a set of
balanced monitor outputs eight additional outputs XLR combo jacks four channels three through eight
channels one and two also have XLR combo jacks but the standout feature is they have send and
returns so you can use the arteria pries and then run that out to some outboard gear and then run
it right back in and I absolutely love this then as far as the specs this interface can function
at 24-bit up to 96 kilohertz it has a max gain of typically around plus 72 DB in ya Yin of negative
129 DB you and input impedance of 3.4 Killa ohms 48 volt phantom power and here are some
headphone output specs if you're interested in this information and it is perfectly capable of
driving even the HD 650 s now to really test out the preamps of the arteria 8 Prix I have connected
the shure sm7b directly to the interface I do not have a cloud lifter or fed head or anything
I had to increase my gain to nearly 100% it's it may be 4 o'clock maybe 4:15 I am hitting around
negative 9 to negative 6 DB on the meters and here is how the audio sounds and I will shut up
so you can hear the noise generated when you're driving a microphone that requires this much gain
now I want to go ahead and measure the noise floor of the preamps using a 150 ohm resistor
okay first up with a sample rate of 48 kilohertz and an i/o buffer size of 64 samples we have a
round-trip latency of nine milliseconds or an output latency of four point four milliseconds
when we jump to 128 samples we have 11 and 1/2 milliseconds round-trip or five point
seven milliseconds output and when we jump up to 256 samples we have a 17 milliseconds round-trip
latency or 8.4 milliseconds output then when we jump up to 96 kilohertz and we have an i/o
buffer size with 64 samples we have a round-trip latency of 7.6 milliseconds or an output of 3.7
milliseconds when we jump up to 128 samples we have a nine milliseconds round-trip or 4.3
milliseconds output and when we jump up to 256 samples we have 11.6 milliseconds round-trip
and five point seven milliseconds output and now I want to demonstrate the tone of the DI instrument
input so to do that I will plug an electric guitar and an electric bass directly in play that dry
without any amp simulators and then I will add some amp simulators and play it in a full mix
you
all right this thing is insane it offers eight of the cleanest pries that I've ever come across and
it's still relatively affordable and first up in terms of pros the preamps these discreet pro pries
are absolutely insane 72 plus DB of gain an EIN of negative 129 DB U or lower perfectly capable
of driving the sm7b cleanly I absolutely am in love with these things I also really like the send
and return for channel 2 I really like the fact that they included both a quarter inch and 8 inch
headphone output although I would like to have seen a second set of those also I appreciate the
individual pads and the boosts on each channel as well as the individual 48 volt phantom power for
each channel that is excellent and the last really big Pro for me is the fact that this can function
as an aide at expansion for some other interface when I was testing this for about a month that's
how I used it paired with my Apollo twin X and it worked wonderfully and then in terms of cons it is
very difficult to find much wrong with this thing my main complaint if I can be hypercritical and
nitpicky is the DI input is still really usable and pretty dang good but I am a bit spoiled with
audience di instrument inputs and compared to the audience this di input just sounds a little bit
sterile and not as exciting and punchy so what I recommend the arteria 8 pre absolutely 100%
especially if you're looking for a data expansion with eight really crazy good preamps obviously if
you are just an at-home podcaster and you need one to two inputs there are plenty of other interfaces
that are more affordable or if you want access to the arteria preamps there's the audio fuse there's
the audio few studio and a few other options and with that being said if I can offer a piece
of advice to arteria this was actually suggested to me by dis court server by the way podcast.com
slash discord it would be absolutely amazing if arteria could package one of these preamps into
a tiny little desktop box and sell it at the one to two hundred dollar price point I think
that would be a home run and even better would be if they could pair it with a compressor and
EQ maybe a limiter and compete with the dbx 286s because there is nothing out there on the market
at that price point that really competes with a dbx and with these pries i think people would
be jumping for joy if that came out so that's just a piece of advice and a gear suggestion
for arteria if they want to take it and that's about it for today so I hope you're staying safe
out there with all this craziness I hope you got your food I hope you got your microphone and your
using your time off to record if you found this video fun interesting or helpful go ahead and
give me a thumbs up hated it big old thumbs down want more videos subscribe logo down beneath me
as I mentioned discord server podcast age comm slash discord also check out podcast.com slash
giveaways occasionally there are free giveaways on there how cool is that if you want to support
the channel and become one of these amazing people over here you can do so by clicking that
join button and joining it the $5 tier or higher aren't they just beautiful they're amazing all
right I'll talk to you next time thanks so much for watching thanks so much for listening goodbye