Let’s take a look at the new generation of Fireface units from RME Audio. There are a lot of similarities between these interfaces, so let’s start with that.

We have here the Fireface UFX Plus, the Fireface UFX II, and the Fireface 802.

For the rear panel analog inputs and outputs, the 3 Fireface units are using the same AD/DA conversion. You can see on the spec sheets for each product that all the measurements are identical. They all use the same RME USB driver, and the same firmware-based USB controller inside, so latency and performance will be identical for all three current Fireface units. Additionally, all three have “stand alone” and “class compliant USB” capability.

The differences are in the details, and this will be the best way to determine which version is right for your application.

The Fireface 802 is the direct successor of the legendary Fireface 800, so it’s design is similar. The mic preamps on the Fireface 802 have 54 decibels of gain available. This unit has analog pots for control of the mic preamp gain and headphone out levels. There is no front panel control available aside from these knobs, so stand-alone operation will be somewhat limited compared to the other 2 Fireface units. The Fireface 802 can connect to a computer with either FireWire or USB 2.0. 

The Fireface UFX II is the direct replacement for the Fireface UFX. This model uses digital control for preamp gain and output levels. Mic preamps on the UFX II have 75 decibels of gain available. The headphone output has lower impedance and higher output level, compared to the Fireface 802. The front panel menu gives you control of all the parameters of the unit, so stand alone operation is completely covered. The Fireface UFX II only uses USB 2.0 for connection to a computer or iOS device -  but this is no big loss as RME’s USB performance is superior to FireWire, and FireWire is virtually obsolete now anyway. The Fireface UFX II includes an upgraded version of RME’s fantastic DURec backup recording system, now including time stamps, better disk compatibility and higher recording channel count.

The Fireface UFX+ is completely identical to the Fireface UFX II, except for a few very important points. The UFX+ plus adds 64 channel MADI I/O to the unit, for a total of 94 input channels and 94 output channels. As you can imagine, even RME can’t push this much data through USB 2.0, so the unit offers connectivity with USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt.

Since RME is a cross-platform company, all Fireface drivers are compatible with both Mac and Windows computers. Even the Thunderbolt connection is supported for Windows. Once again, RME has delivered not only an evolution in the Fireface series, but a revolution as well. No one else is delivering such rock solid, low latency USB performance, and no one else is delivering such a full package for Windows computers, even using Thunderbolt.