RME 802, A TEN YEAR TWEAK

21 March 2014

Always a cunning plan, release an updated and improved version of one of your most popular products. RME isn’t silly, bringing out the RME 802, the successor to its RME 800 that’s been around nearly ten years. In doing this, RME has made an interesting decision. The 800 offered both Firewire 400 and Firewire 800 connections, and RME has dropped the latter in favour of providing USB 2.0 and Firewire 400 instead. It’s maybe a tacit acknowledgment by RME that unless you’re after massive channel counts, then neither USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt is really needed, that Firewire 800 isn’t in wide use, and USB 2.0 is still the favoured protocol for a majority of the market RME is aiming for here – but dropping Firewire altogether isn’t wise. The RME 802 provides 60 channels in total, 30 inputs and 30 outputs, but as is often the case most of those are digital connections and anyone looking for a decent XLR/Preamp count need to look closely. There are 12 analogue inputs and only four of those are XLR preamps. However, the RME 802’s strengths are the quality internal circuitry, which has been given an overhaul from the 800’s decade old technology, and the TotalMix FX DSP which is essentially a DAW in its own right with extensive routing, syncronising and plug-in processing at high sample rates on every channel and buss. Between the hardware configuration and the TotalMix FX the RME 802 is a diverse, very flexible interface. Don’t be fooled by the four XLRs and the 1RU design. More info at www.rme-audio.de

Australian Distributor: Innovative Music www.innovativemusic.com.au