In this video for Pro Tools Expert James Ivey talks to Paul Mortimer from Emerging UK about the Merging Technologies Horus audio interface.  James and Paul decided to do one of those test that normally can never be done.  They set out to find out just how good the microphone pre-amps and the A/D conversion in the Merging Horus really are.  As a drummer and engineer James has been recording drums for a great many years so he knows what he wants to hear and what he likes hearing, and so we did these 4 tests. 

1. Record the 12 microphones on the drum kit through the Horus' built in Mic Pres and record this using a Ravenna connection to the network card of the Mac Pro. 
2. Record the 12 mics again via the in built mic pres but this time recording to Pro Tools via the HDX card. 
3. Record the 12 mics via the built in Horus mic pres but this time use the through feature of the Horus mic pre cards to rout to the audio I/O of an Avid HD I/O 16x16.
4. Record the 12 drum mics using some of James' collection of 500 series modules and an Audient ASP 800 8 channel mic pre connected analog into the Avid HD I/O 16x16.

Now we know this is not a totally fair test and hence we are not lining this up as a shoot out with a double blind listening test.  However, what you can do is download the Pro Tools session James and Paul recorded here. The Zip files contains all the named audio files so if you are not a Pro Tools users you can drag the audio into the time line of your DAW and listen to the recordings.

Click here to download the zip file.

If you are a Pro Tools 11 or 12 user you can use the Pro Tools session file and load the session as James and Paul had it.  And if you just want to hear a stereo mix of each of the 4 versions there are 4 stereo files in the Audio Files folder that you can listen to on any stereo file player. 

We hope you find this test useful and please comment on which versions you like and join the discussion.