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An Affordable Pro-Quality Sound Card?
TFGeditor asks: "The company I work for is launching a pre-recorded radio program. I will be working with other staff (all in remote locations) to create the sound clips and then cobbling the show together (mixing). I will also interface with the co-host at a remote studio over the net via uber-broadband connection, producing our portion of the show as if we were in the same studio interacting with each other. What is the best sound card for the money (PC/XP) for this type of application?"
The one that is marginally better than your speakers/headphones. What kind of speakers will you be using to preview the sound?
There is no point getting an über sound card if you have unter speakers.
M-AUDIO has some fantastic pro-sumer sound cards and equipment.
http://www.m-audio.com/
Get thee to an Audio forum, fool.
I'm not normally one to complain about "Ask Slashdot" questions, but this isn't the best community to turn to for a recording question. There are forums in which nearly every member has bought many different audio interfaces -- you want one of those, not Slashdot.
Just why do I think the terms "pro-quality" and "affordable" don't mix?
IMO, "pro-quality" means: having this be less good than your competitor's means you don't eat. "Affordable" well seems to be a little less picky.
It's hard to make a recommendation without knowing at a granular level what you want to do. How many inputs? How many outputs? Is latency an issue? What about frequency/bitrate? Digital inputs? Analog? MADI? Lightpipe? Some light reading... On the ULTRA high end, you would go with Apogee- http://www.apogeedigital.com/ - these are some of the industry's best da/ad converters; and with something like a big ben+rosetta on firewire, you'd be in good hands. Another contender could be rme http://www.rme-audio.com/ Then there's motu's line of products - http://www.motu.com/ - I've personally owned several of their interfaces and can tell you right out of the gate they're great. Good bang for the buck... Then you've got m-audio http://www.m-audio.com/ edirol http://www.edirol.com/ presonus http://www.presonus.com/
http://www.bistolas.net
good luck...
I probably wouldn't go for an internal card. Better to have an external box in many ways. This one a friend of mine has and it's very good for the money.
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http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/AudiophileU
I've only used it on OSX but I think the drivers should be just as reliable on XP.
This one sounds even better but is more expensive and you'll need firewire.
http://www.motu.com/newsitems/traveler-press
I've got their 828mkII and this one uses the same DAC/DAC as that which sound really good.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
I have a soundblaster X-Fi: XtremeMusic. If you can get over the kind of goofy name, it's a very, very nice card. I have only done a little recording on it, but it's powerful (51 mn transistors) and clear (136 decibel signal to noise ratio). It can do all the normal stuff like surround sound, plus some cool stereo -> surround stuff. If you need weird inputs or an optical out, you'll need to go with one of the slightly more expensive cards, but for digital i/o or 3 stereo plugs, this card is awesome.
You've more or less asked what's the best car for driving to and from work and around town. Good luck with that.
There's a huge variety of pro and semi-pro audio gear on the market. If you've got detailed requirements then you need to start reading tech specs and reviews. If you don't have detailed requirements then just search for "usb audio interface" and/or "firewire audio interface" and pick something in the $100-$200 range.
There are a vast number of features and quite a wide price range and I really doubt there's an objective "best" any more than there's an objective "best" car that everyone would agree is better than all the others.
It's a great card. I own one and it's great if you can manage the wiring. It's all unbalanced RCA and MIDI connections, so it's not that out of thr ordinary. But if you don't have RCA jacks on your speakers you'll need a adapter for them. The card runs about 100 bucks.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
The iMic USB soundcards are really nice. Good quality parts, 48k@24 bit recording (iirc). Interface-wise these cards are very simple. They pretty much just have volume and balance, no frilly features to speak of. Oh, and it runs on Mac, Linux, Windows, etc. without special drivers. By far one of the best (consumer-grade) sound cards I've ever used. And no, I don't work for them.
Accept Eris as your Fnord and personally sate her
You probably want something like an M-Audio firewire unit. Another poster recommended the 2496 box, which is excellent. Their other models work well, too.
An external unit will prevent the electric noise from your PC from causing issues, and using firewire instead of USB will mean less CPU usage for the same work.
Echo makes some good budget pro audio cards, 20 or 24 bit DACs, well designed, with propper sheilding. Pick one that meets your needs for input / output channels. Be sure to have a sound engineer hook things up, or at the very least learn how to avoid ground loops. If you don't have any PCI slots, theres good external boxes out there that plug in via Firewire. Also you can possibly find a good PCIe card.
I'm no expert at this, but hang out in certain audio/video boards and read professionals' opinions on this (and stayed at a Holiday Inn last night). The common advice is to get an external audio interface that hooks to your computer via USB 2.0 or Firewire. The reason for this is that the electronic environment inside the PC case is extremely noisy (RF interference) making it almost impossible to get really clean audio if the analog audio circuitry is in there. That's why any professional audio card you see is usually external. I have seen M-Audio and motu recommended too. Oh, and what someone said about noise-free environment (quiet room) and correct microphone are also very important.
By the way, I imagine you'll probably find a better selection (and prices) of these interfaces at your local Guitar Center or discount music superstore than at your regular computer parts store.
Good luck.
Internal sound cards have gotten pretty darn good, but you can still wind up with RF noise leaking into the audio. Keeping the ADC/DAC outside of the computer eliminates the possibility.
The ESI Julia@ and Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 are very very nice cards.Quite popular in Malaysia as it is dirt cheap,or u could even go for a modified 0404 ,though i am not so sure on the price
Since discontinued, but more likely than not better quality than anything you're going to need.
Get thee to Ebay!
(No, that is not my auction.)
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The SB 16 is actually [still] one of the better consumer sound cards, however I think that this company would be better served by a LynxOne.
Video Production Support
M-Audio make great cards in a wide price range. Their lower end units aren't "pro-quality", but they're definitely on the right path.
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Seriously. Their quality has gone up quite a bit in the past few years, but it's still not as nice as the MOTU, Echo, or M-Audio gear. Creative sells a great deal of gear to people who believe gimmickry like their claims of impossible S/N ratios, so you must understand that their efforts are really focused on attention-grabbing features (like 5.1 simulations from stereo in hardware) instead of quality (like rock-solid clock signals). Also, their drivers suck. Professionals DO NOT use Creative's products, and their attention to professional features like simple, solid drivers is lacking for that reason. Other manufacturers cater to the crowd that is more discriminating about these details and don't care about 3D audio accelleration in games, for example.
Finally, they recently had a serious issue where they advertised 24bit audio, but it was only 24bit on PLAYBACK. This may have been resolved, but I recently saw some posts on a forum that indicated that it wasn't. I have been doing semi-pro audio on PC's since the days of the Turtle Beach Tahiti in 1994 (back when TB made really wonderful gear... sigh) and I would never trust my music to a Creative Labs product. -NEVER-
A friend has the Mia and we're wrapping up an EP on it for our mastering setup. We recorded at my place where I use a Yamaha 01V digital mixer with an optical connection to a Terratec EWS/88D (older stuff, but I like it). The Mia is nice. I've heard great things about the recent M-Audio products as well. You should strongly consider an external box if you are doing recording (as opposed to mixing). Cards are still prone to noise (although it's much better these days than when PC audio first started) and breaking it out from the inside of the EM-washed case makes a big difference. Not to mention that if you get a firewire or USB device you can use it with your laptop and have a mobile recording solution (of course, you will then not be able to match the latency of a PCI card; this explains why I have a card but I use the card as a digital interface to an external A/D D/A converter, my mixer).
Soundblaster cards are great for games, movies, and listening to music. When the intented use is to record, however, they are a poor choice because the input convertors are not very good. There is also the issue that they are internally rate locked to 48k and will force SRC onto streams of any other rates (such as the CD standard of 44.1k). Good for games, but not so good for the project studio. A simple low-end pro card like an audiophile 24/96 is a much better choice for about $100 or so, if you can deal with only having line-level inputs. Do you need Mic inputs? Phantom power? How many input signals will you be dealing with at the same time? After you have the answers to these questions, you can compare products with the feature set you need from M-audio, RME, and Presonus to determine the exact card that is best for you. You can't go wrong with products from any of these three companies.
Good gas milage, looks stupid (turns heads), and your farts will smell like roses.
My other first post is car post.
Parent is right on the money.
Polish is something that many people can hear subconsciously, even if they can't explain exactly why they like one podcast over another. And, TFGeditor, if you're reading this, you're doing a podcast, aren't you? You just don't want apple to sue you, huh? I understand.
If you're just mixing down prerecorded clips already in digital form, then delivering them to another location in digital form, your sound card doesn't matter. The content isn't going through it. What does matter is the software you're using to assemble the show.
So how come /. and Fark fade out and leave me sans entertainment before I crash? Cant we outsource some help to a different time zone?
Is this what you english people would call an oxymoron?
You might also want to check out E-MU cards. I'm not in the business, but their products seem pretty professional to me. I own an E-MU 1212m (because I am into hi-fi) and love it.
He asked a specific yet open-ended question on slashdot, of the form "pro performance for cheap". He's obviously not looking for a real answer. He's looking for entertaintment.
Dear slashdot editors, YHBT.
Now, the only audio input work I've done was digitizing vinyl, which isn't all that taxing. However, I'm fairly particular about sound quality.
What I've determined is that even good quality on board D/A equipment is poor. Much better, for a number of reasons, to use an external converter plugged in to an spdif jack (input and output).
I'm very happy with my EMU 1820, though for what you plan to do it may be overkill- I doubt you have much of a need for 8 channels of analog input + 10 digital channels, not to mention the other 14 host sources you can mix in(total of 32 channels hardware mixing). But the EMU cards also offer hardware accelerated effects... some of which, especially compression, can be quite important for broadcasting. Taking the load off your CPU can make a big difference sometimes.
Look for high quality DACs. Don't worry too much about 24 bit bit depth, or 96/192khz sample rates... 44.1/16 implemented well will be overkill as it is for any sort of radio broadcast or webcast. If you do want to go further, bit depth will generally mean more than sample rates, at least in my experience recording stuff- but there is little need unless you want to master for an analog medium and get aural advantages over compact discs.
The one problem with EMU cards is the tendency for the driver to go mental and corrupt itself. On the upside, this has only happened to me on boot- you really don't need to worry aobut it dying in the middle of a session. On the other hand it sometimes requires registry surgery and manual deletion of files in c:\windows\system32\ to let you reinstall the drivers. This doesn't happen often, but it's certainly a pain in the ass when it does.
For the capabilities they offer, the EMU cards are priced quite low. But as explained above, driver stability can sometimes be a significant issue. If you need 24/7 immediate availability, don't get them. But given that the worst case is probably that you lose an hour a day every 4-6 months(probably less), they can be quite good for many contexts.
This company would be better served by asking on an audio board. You should ask on ProSoundWeb if you're feeling lucky. Otherwise, homerecording.com has a BBS that a lot of recording folks frequent (myself included). Neither the SB 16 nor LynxOne will EVER be recommended on an audio board. You can't even get Mac OS X drivers for the LynxOne (according to the company's website). It's a fossil. And the SB 16 is a toy. Utterly a toy.
The first mistake the person asking the question made is to use the words "sound card" and "professional" (well, pro-quality) in the same sentence. These days, the correct term is "audio interface" because almost every modern interface these days is NOT a card. I would strongly recommend FireWire; USB is at best marginal, IMHO. Above all else, though, get something that is external. I say this for three reasons:
With a PCI interface, you're stuck on a Windows PC desktop forever (unless you want to try to run Ardour under Linux). You'll never be able to switch to a Mac because current Macs don't have legacy parallel PCI slots. You'll never be able to move to a laptop because the cost of a PCI breakout box is much, much more than it would cost to buy a FireWire interface . Finally, within about 5 years or slightly over, you'll be stuck trying to keep your current computer running because you'll be hard pressed to find a motherboard that still supports PCI.
I'm not going to give any specific recommendations within the FireWire space. I'll say that the Presonus pres are slightly better than the M-Audio pres, IMHO, and I've heard some people also mention that Presonus pres are better than the TASCAM pres. So if you're going for that very last tiny drop of quality, that's something to consider. Of course, if you're really trying to spend money, you can't go wrong with an RME Fireface or an Echo AudioFire. I'm also a fan of MOTU; of course, while a lot of Mac users swear by them, I've heard some PC users swear at them, so YMMV.
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You pay extras for the shiny box and the horrible software that's forcibly tacked on. Skip the Audigy.
Seconding the Audiophile 2496 request by the way, it's a workhorse of a card.
Some things I forgot to mention, in no particular order:
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The best bang for the buck I've found (and used) is the Echo Mia Midi PCI card. It is a pain getting it to work on Linux, but it will work there and I assume it is much more easily configured under Windows or on a Mac.
AFAIK all the songs at the site www.mauiruhisongs.com were recorded using that card [disclaimer: religious content], so you can listen there to get an idea of the quality of the sound.
Two channels in and two out are not enough for some though.
Here be Apogee they make reasonable convertors. I know people doing voice work with the audiophile but let's not pretend it's professional kit, it isn't.
I own an Echo Mia MIDI, which has the same ADACs as the M-Audio 24-96 but lower noise and better sound (circut design??). Some other popular high-end vendors in a slightly higher price range are Marian and RME
If you're going to record voice you'll need a bunch of good condenser microphones and a mixer capable of supplying them the 48V phantom power. That means unbalanced inputs (at least) and XLR connectors + noiseless cables. You will also need a good environment to take recordings: take into account some sound absorbing panels, they're not cheap. As for the soundcard, the M-Audio is a good cheap (and Linux compatible) choice: I love my Delta 44 also because of the nice penguin on its box:*).
A couple hints on voice recording: when you use compressors and limiters, don't do as many cheap TV and radio station "sound technicians" do, ie don't set them to maximum or automatic mode: you will need to adjust them each and every time on the voice of the recorded person. If somebody talks too softly or too far from the mic, the compressor must -not- be set to raise the signal level to the point that you get a ton of background noise: you have to talk to the person and ask him/her to talk straight into the mic at one palm distance.
For my home studio I use an M-Audio Delta 1010LT. It has 10 ins, 10 outs, and two balanced xlr inputs. It records 24bit at 96KHz and there is no audible noise. Works great with Ardour. The card itself is around $200. It's best to pick up a decent mixer with Inserts for managing the channels.
Make sure to get some decent speakers for them or a good set of headphones with a flat frequency response. Flat frequency response is important to make sure what you edit sounds good everywhere. When I first started with recording, the headphones I used put a lot of bass in the sound. Guess what my mixes were lacking when played through other setups?
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
I have to agree with the parent. This is most certainly not the place to be asking this kind of question. However, I'm willing to throw in my 1.5 cents, as a musician.
Now you said this is primarily a radio show, so I'm going to take a jump here and say you won't actually be playing much live music. If this is the case, then you don't have to splurge on the much higher end stuff for that "perfect" sound. In fact, your recording quality doesn't have to be the max you can handle either. I will recommend that you do yourself a favor and go get yourself a nice quality Condenser Microphone with a pop shield(those funny felt looking disks they suspend in front). This will help reduce the wind noise generated by certain sounds you will make(Such as P's and B's).
I have to say, from experience, that my absolute favorite recording card is the Mark Of The Unicorn 828 mkII, but it has a serious amount of inputs that you may not need. You may find the Traveler or the Ultralite more your cup of tea. Either way, nothing beats getting into your local audio shop and trying one out
One final question I have is what program are you using? If you are using anything but Pro Tools, such as Cubase, then the MOTU stuff should be good for you. However, if you DO plan to use Pro Tools: then you are kind of locked into M-Audio or Digidesign. Pro Tools will only work with Digidesign/M-Audio approved hardware. Namely their own.
Don't skimp on a good mixer, be it software or a physical one; make sure your mixer is up to par with what you are doing. If you prefer to work with more physical equipment rather than virtual, then I would also recommend getting a compressor for your voice. These things can do wonders for your sound and levels
Finally, above all else: Be careful WHERE YOU RECORD!. 90% of people overlook this one critical, CRITICAL variable. You could have this amazing live sound, your could be Howard Stern (or Opie and Anthony); and if your acoustical environment is terrible: your recording will suck. There are some excellent resources out there. You just have to google for it.
Here's another vote for an external firewire interface.
For what you are trying to accomplish, you should be able to get an interface and a chinese large-diaphragm condenser together in the $300-500 range. For example, a PreSonus Firebox (~$300) and a Studio Projects B1 (~$100).
For a place to get started shopping, Sweetwater has incredible customer service. BSW has some "podcast" packages with everything you'd need to get started.
I've had experience with both Edirol and M-Audio devices, and in my experience the Edirol ones come closer to meeting their advertised capabilities and are more likely to come with drivers that work. I had an M-Audio Transit audio interface for my mac, and they were NEVER able to get the drivers to work properly. My friend returned a fairly high-end M-Audio Firewire interface box because it wouldn't work properly with his computer (again, a driver issue we suspect)... I've seen none of these problems with equipment from Edirol.
You might want to give Sweetwater Sound a call and explain to them what your goals are. Also give them the budget you have to work with. They should be able to help you put together a package that suits your needs. Also note that when you look at their Computer Audio section that they don't sell a single thing by Creative. There's a reason for this.
This guy's the limit!
No joke. Not trolling. Consider the cost of something like an iMac that might be able to most or all of this right "out of the box."
I can't believe that people on here are recommending M-Audio. I admit, if you want to pay next-to-nothing, then M-Audio is reasonable. If you don't actually want to do professional production (just high quality amateur stuff), then M-Audio is fine. Then again, for just a little more money, you can get some of the best preamps on the market.
For the price, the Mackie Onyx preamps are absolutely unbeatable. I have used many, many, many, many mixers and preamps, and the Mackie Onyx is the only "live" mixer that I will also use in the studio (I use it when I need more than the 24 tracks offered by my d8b).
A full Onyx mixer is probably more than you need, but lucky for you, Mackie sells a two channel, firewire enabled Onyx preamp called the Onyx Satellite for only $500.
And, it comes bundled with Mackie Tracktion, which is, admittedly, not as great as some of the other software packages, but for the price it is remarkably solid.
burrocrisy
and that would be what? Ruling by jackasses? Never has a slashdot misspelling been more apropos
The VIA Envy24 chip combined with a quality I2S codec chip (AKM Semiconductor) will suit your needs. Stay away from the Envy24HT-S, Envy24PT, and Envy24GT as they are lower-end chips geared for the consumer markets. I'd go for S/PDIF digital interconnects if you can foot the bill.
Do they even make a sound card with discrete components in the output stage, or are they all made with the same OP amp cheap ass output stages? Personally, I would like a sound card that the rest of my high-end audio system doesn't laugh at.
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
The Tascam US-122 is cheap (around 200 last time I checked), runs over USB (so it works with just about everything) and has 2 mic/line inputs with phantom power. It also comes with recording software bundled into it - I sold pro audio for years and this thing is fantastic bang-for-buck - if you want more "industry standard compatibility" get an MBox which comes with protools. If that's not your concern, just get the Tascam and spend the money you saved to buy a pair of nice condensor mics. The RE-20 is a classic radio mic - on the cheaper tip, I have a R0DE NT-1 and for the 200 earth dollars it costs, it sounds great - really warm and pretty
-w
calling all destroyers
I have scored several films ,produced and engineered quite a few albums and cut several radio and podcast spots using Presonus Firepods http://www.presonus.com/. It has just about all the IO you could ask for in an 8 (10 if you count spdif) channel box. You can also daisy chain 3 of them for a 24 channel stack. Also, it is rack mountable so you can readily take it on the road. Overall things just work and I, and my customers, have been very pleased with the sound quality. Not to mention, you get balanced and unbalanced capabilities. To keep things quiet I don't run anything unbalanced if there is more that 3 feet of cable.
If the firepod is a bit much they also offer cut down versions. The firebox, which is a 2 channel unit, and the inspire which has 4 channels.
Digidesign http://www.digidesign.com/, Echo http://www.echoaudio.com/ and Mackie http://www.mackie.com/ also have some really nice gear but can be a bit pricy. I do agree with staying away from m-audio. Their MIDI stuff is phenominal but the audio gear is lacking. I would say the same for lower level Alesis and anything from Behringer.
I also must echo earlier posts in saying that you shouldn't skimp on mics. Your end product is only as good as your source. I would recommend a good condenser from AudioTechnica or MXL for price/quality.
Also, your monitors (for you non-audio folks these are the speakers, not the video display) are also critical to getting a mix that translates well to other systems. You will find that if you use standard stereo speakers or, God forbid, computer speakers what you put out will sound extremely different from stereo to stereo as you listen in different environments.
I personally use Event TR8Ns with a KRK Rockit 10 subwoofer but these babies ain't cheap at $1000.00US per pair. I would recommend looking into KRK http://www.krksys.com/. I did some post work on the latest Stereofuge album with Mark Slaughter producing and we did the entire mix on them and it sounded fat-tastic. In any case, you will want a good near-field monitor that is self powered to eliminate transients.
Finally, clean up your power. You'll be amazed at the difference a $60.00US power conditioner can make to the quality of the sound you get. I use Furman http://www.furmansound.com/ conditioners. This is a good tip for anyone who has a home-theater or high-end gaming system as well.
A good set of reference books for audio newbs is a series of books by Bobby Owsinski. Starting with the recording engineers handbook (available at amazon) they will give you enough info to be extremely dangerous.
I didn't mean to be so verbose but I hope some of this is useful.
I have one and am very happy with it. It's an external USB 2.0 device, which IMHO provides a couple of key advantages: (1) being external, it is isolated from computer noise; (2) being USB 2.0, it is easily moved between computers.
Several other advantages: (3) it works with laptops if you want to be more portable; (4) it's supported by a wide variety of software; (5) it does PC or Mac (I happen to use it with a Mac laptop).
It does audio in/out (all kinds of connectors, both analog and digital), and also provides a MIDI interface, should you need that.
Mod parent up. Room treatment is the #1 most overlooked thing in setting up a small recording studio, which is a shame because it is the most important aspect of the sound, bar none.
I'm not sure I'd recommend a condenser mic. Depends on the voice of the person being recorded. For radio, dynamics are more common because they're more forgiving of room acoustics. If you do go condenser, go large diaphragm, as the small diaphragm condensers are likely to have too flat a response for voice to really sound good. For that classic radio sound, you could also consider a ribbon, assuming you buy something with decent pres.
The choice of mic is as individual as your choice of underwear (except that everyone can tell if you chose a bad microphone). Definitely ask around on recording boards and get a feel for what mic would best suit your voice. It helps if you have tried a couple of mics and can describe what you don't like about them, but at the very least, you need to tell what kind of voice you have. And don't be afraid to use the search feature on the boards. There's a lot of useful information, particularly in the MIc forum on homerec and other boards.
On the issue of pop filters, one small tip: spend the extra money and buy a metal screen pop filter. They don't rot and you can clean them more easily than the fabric pop filters. Just my $0.02.
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I would have to recommend a good dynamic microphone. Mainly because you can hammer nails with them and they'll still work fine for decades. I would explicitly not recommend ribbon microphones as they are easily damaged by shock and moving air. Dynamic microphones also tend to be cheaper, and therefore you can afford more of them (the biggest mistake you could make is to not have a complete set of backup microphones).
With dynamic microphones, however, you have to worry about proximity effect. Some engineers love the effect, some work really hard and buy extra processing gear to counteract it. You don't have that issue with condenser mics.
Ribbon mics are a lot more robust than most folks think. I mean, sure, you don't want to use them in front of a bass drum or anything, but most of the current ones have a fair amount of wind screen material inside to limit the amount of damage you can do during normal use. They should be treated with reasonable care, but the same applies to any microphone that you actually want to keep....
Also, FWIW, you have to worry about proximity effect with any directional microphone, regardless of whether it is dynamic or not. It's the nature of the pickup pattern, not the nature of the mechanism. Condensers can have a ton of proximity effect. If you don't want proximity effect, get an omni mic. The tighter the pickup pattern, the more proximity effect, so a hypercardioid has more proximity effect than a cardioid, which has more than a figure-8, with an omni having essentially none (though purists will probably point out that there's always a little bit of directionality even with an omni mic, and that the amount depends on the frequency and the size of the diaphragm, and thus, there should always be a little bit of proximity effect, at least in theory, but... that's probably just a bit too pedantic).
I will concede that cheap dynamic mics tend to have unusually harsh proximity effect, particularly in the supercardioid/hypercardioid varieties (two patterns that I've never even seen in anything other than moving coil dynamics)... but condensers do have proximity effect unless they are omni (which you would typically not want for a vocal mic...).
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I have been searching for a good sound card myself, started with Adlib, had on the road SB16, 32, Gravis Ultrasound (PRO) and currently I got a Digital Mistique. A very cheap and quality soundcard where you can change the DAC's. I've been using it for digitalizing my vinyl and sampling and the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty low for this soundcard (even with the already existing DAC's).
It supports 7.1, Dolby Live, has a optical and coaxial SP/DIF ; it just works.
With the Creative Labs Audigy I always had the problems that the SP/DIF did not return true surround ; which was needed for me for my productions. This card has true surround which gets exported through its digital connector; instead of with the Creative Labs where you need to buy an additional box to get the 3 speakercables to a true 5.1/7.1 digital connection....
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Get a job, get a better job, or save your money. Then you should be able afford a darned good sound card, even the ones at $1000.
Wow - you must have those 'golden ears' too... You're talking shit. "I'm not going to give any specific recommendations within the FireWire space." Can you say that again in English? "within the FireWire 'space'"? What the fuck are you talking about, you pretentious twat?
The original poster can manage quite happily with any soundcard on the market today. Any Creative card will do fine. Any other card, for that matter, will do fine. What's the betting that nobody can hear the difference between any of them?
I'd have to agree 101% with that. I had my machine consistently crash in windows XP, and I would honestly have to absolve Microsoft of blame in the face that creative's shitty drives seemed to be the cause. Running linux with open drives had no such issues (and for cards of similar cost, I *do* recommend creative labs cards for linux, or at least SBLive, because the Open-Source drivers are pretty decent and do handle hardware mixing). When I later tried it on other windows machines, they crashed as well until I found a third-party driver (tons of functionality, and more stable).. though offhand I can't remember the name (I use it at work on some machines, not home).