Discuss Quantum Series Interfaces Here
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Hello,
I purchased a Quantum 2 a few months before it was discontinued and this is to share my experience.

My choice of interface was based on the lower latency Thunderbolt can provide compared to USB, which was important to me for real-time performance and recording. So, I also purchased a Thunderbolt adapter for my computer's Asus X299 Sage motherboard, configured the relevant options in the UEFI BIOS and booted up Windows 10.

It took me several weeks to get the TB adapter and its drivers to work "properly". I had tested Quantum 2 with an old (2013) Macbook Pro and it worked fine there, but I needed the CPU and RAM of my Windows Desktop PC, so I had to insist. On the PC, the Quantum 2 would either not blink its Thunderbolt LED, suggesting no signal from the TB card, or it would blink but not connect.

I think I accidentally made the TB add-on card work and, once the Quantum 2 was connected, I compared its latency with my older Steinberg UR (USB 2) interface. I must say that I was not impressed at all; reducing the buffer size resulted in audio glitches (on a 10 cores 20 threads Intel i9 CPU, hardly utilised during my tests), while increasing the buffer size resulted into solid sound quality but very similar latency with the USB interface. Nevertheless, I kept using the Quantum 2.

In the year that followed, sometimes the Quantum 2 was not recognised, due to the Thunderbolt card not sending signal. A reboot would often solve this. Other times, I couldn't fix it and the system fixed itself a few days later, without me having made any system changes. Very odd, unpredictable behaviour.

I thought the TB card might be defective, so I replaced it. The new card worked well for a few months, until it also suffered from the same issues.

After a year and a half, I have lost my patience with TB. I realise it's not the Quantum 2's fault, but I can't replace the computer only because TB doesn't work correctly and, even while it worked, TB did not deliver significantly lower latencies than USB, to justify the pain of working with an unpredictable system. It looks like Asus+Intel+Microsoft should work more closely together and improve Thunderbolt's reliability on the PC platform.

I've retrieved from the closet the Steinberg USB interface and removed the TB card from my PC. That was it with me and Thunderbolt ad-on cards. Goodbye!

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Hardware: Asus X299 Sage WS, ThunderboltEX 3 Card, i9-7900X CPU, 32GB DDR4 @2400MHz RAM, Samsung SSD 970 PRO, NVIDIA GTX 1080Ti GPU, Presonus Quantum 2, Steinberg UR22, Steinberg CC121, AKAI MPK261 keyboard.
Software: Windows 10 Pro (1909), Cubase 10.5 Pro, WaveLab Elements 9.5, Presonus Studio One 5 Artist.
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by themaartian on Wed Mar 30, 2022 11:14 pm
Sorry for your pain. Your post reinforced my decision to wait for Thunderbolt to be natively offered. My new Lenovo ThinkPad P17 has two TB3 ports that work flawlessly. I stuck with USB on my old Dell desktop. I suspect that you'll be pulling the Quantum out of the closet sometime in the future.

Intel i9, 32 GB RAM, 7 TB SSD Win 11 Pro PreSonus Studio 1810c
Studio One 6 Pro MuseScoreMelodyne 5 Studio Acoustica Pro 7 Guitar Pro 8
Gig Performer 4 NI S61 MK3 Focal Shape 65 Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro, DT 770 Pro
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by TerjeNorway on Sun Apr 03, 2022 7:50 am
Asus has had a lot of issues with their add on cards. Also the X299 chipset is known for a lot of issues. I have native thunderbolt on a Gigabyte Z490 VISION D and have no problems at all.

My system
Intel Core i9-10900K Processor
Noctua NH-U12A CPU cooler
Gigabyte Z490 VISION D
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB SSD
Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200MHz 64GB
MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Gaming X Trio 12G
StarTech Thunderbolt Cable 2M (TBOLTMM2MW)
StarTech Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter (TBT3TBTADAP)
Neumann TLM 102 microphone
Presonus Quantum
Windows 10, Ableton 11, Cubase 10

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