Review: TC Electronic Impact Twin

Overview
The TC Electronic Impact Twin is a mid-level firewire interface with 14 inputs and outputs. It has two preamps, onboard effects, S/PDIF, ADAT Lightpipe and MIDI I/O. It’s not as compact as some other interfaces but packs a ton of features and i/o yet still small enough to fit in a backpack.

The Impact Twin caught my eye in spring 2011. I was looking for a more compact replacement to my M-Audio Profire 2626 (see review here), or a way to expand the I/O of my system, or at least a portable option so I don’t have to tear apart my studio all the time I go out to record. I trust TC Electronic to make nice clean digital gear, for about $400 it had pretty much every feature and function I wanted. I ordered one through Revolution Audio (note: I work for this company and got dealer pricing) and when it arrived I started writing my review. I don’t really have a good excuse why it took nearly a year to write, other than that l got busy being awesome in other aspects. Jump down to the end if you’d like to see what I think of it after about 8 months of owning it.

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This is smart: adater for useless Delta 1010 rack

What is the adater?

The ADATer is an easy-to-use connector-size box designed for use with a rack unit of widely spread M-Audio Delta 1010 soundcards.

ADATer turns your DELTA 1010 rack unit into a stand alone 8-IN 8-OUT Analog-to-Lightpipe / Lightpipe-to-Analog converter. It provides two Lightpipe (TOSLINK) connectors, one Input and one Output and is designed to work without a computer. It uses the ADAT™ communication protocol which allows the use of 8 channels of 16 or 24 bit encoded digital audio each way.

More info: http://www.dangerousdevices.co.uk/dangerousdevices/adater.asp
More info: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/622702-using-delta-1010-rme-drivers-totalmix-via-adat-adater-explained.html

This is fucking smart. M-Audio abandoned the Delta 1010 (for a short time they made a similar ADAT expansion but it still required the PCI card connection to the computer) and Dangerous Devices creates a simple product to keep them from going to waste or filling the tech garbage dumps.

I don’t have a Delta 1010 rack, BUT there is always a ton of cheap ones on eBay (~$100). There aren’t many ADAT devices without preamps, and there aren’t ANY inexpensive options. The Delta 1010 is not a pro unit, but certainly useable. I’m considering ordering a 1010 and adater to use as a line level digital patchbay for my cheap rack gear.

Posted in Audio Interface, Gear | 4 Comments »