time for new soundcard ?

[vasyachkin]

ok my EMU1212M is getting on my nerves !

not only is it using up 1.5 GIGAbytes of my ram with its stupid patchmix DSP application (without which it doesnt work) but every once in a while (like every few days) it crashes and i cant get it to work again without restarting the computer which is a somewhat complicated process on my system for various reasons.

but anyway im running Vista X64 and i need a soundcard for playback only. for the most part i will only use digital outputs and pretty much never will use internal DACs so i don't even need any in the card itself.

on the other hand i would like to have digital outputs for 8 channels ( 24bit / 96khz pcm each ) so i could potentially set up a 7.1 system later on ... but i dont want one of those consumer 7.1 cards that will have a single digital output with all the channels lumped on it ... i want four pairs of 2-channel digital outputs and i MUST have ASIO support ...

anything decent i can get ? most of all i would like to have something with BULLETPROOF DRIVERS but it would also be nice to have something with powerful hardware on the digital side ...

i probably dont need more than 96khz because my behringer gear only handles 96khz but if it doesn't cost much extra 192khz would be cool too

[Paul Carmody]

It's worked well for me for almost 10 years now! Bulletproof drivers (hey, it's windows DEFAULT, for crying out loud), perfect DirectX support, never crashes, surprisingly low bus noise....

In all seriousness, one brand I will recommend against is MOTU (Mark of the Unicorn), since you say you're using a Windows system. They are a Mac-loving company, but occasionally they come out with a Win/Mac product. The idea that their products are supposed to work on PCs is a joke! I had a Win/Mac MIDI interface by them and it not only crashed all the time, but if anything happened to the USB bus, it would think it was disconnected, and I would have to re-install the drivers. I checked around about this product, and I wasn't th eonly one having the problem. Another cool thing it would do is a sort of "train wreck" effect, where, after I'd press play, nothing would happen, then 5-6 seconds later, it would play ALL the notes it missed since I pressed play. You know, the joystick MIDI adapter on my SB64 always worked, first time, every time.

I currently use an M-audio Audiophile, which is USB, and it's really robust. It gets a ton of use and abuse; plus, the cable gets unplugged and plugged all the time for all sorts of reasons, and it hardly skips a beat and recovers seamlessly. I'm actually sort of shocked the drivers are that smart. So M-audio gets my approval. Their parent company, Digidesign, came from a Mac background, and they are slow to transition. I own Pro Tools, but only because it's an industry standard. Windows-friendly and robust, it isn't.

[unknownuser]

> but anyway im running Vista X64 and i need a
> soundcard for playback only. for the most
> part i will only use digital outputs and
> pretty much never will use internal DACs so
> i don't even need any in the card itself.

The output from any device will be either single output multichannel digital to be fed to a decoder or line level channels which can only be derived from a decoding section of some sort on the card. You use one or other. Some top level cards have outputs for seven or eight channels, but these are often external devices.

Another alternative may be to use a digital out and get a separate decoder

> would like to have something with
> BULLETPROOF DRIVERS

Bullettproof drivers.... on Vista???? roflmao !!!!


(Originally posted by: george of the jungle)

[vasyachkin]

It's worked well for me for almost 10 years now! Bulletproof drivers (hey, it's windows DEFAULT, for crying out loud), perfect DirectX support, never crashes, surprisingly low bus noise....

In all seriousness, one brand I will recommend against is MOTU (Mark of the Unicorn), since you say you're using a Windows system. They are a Mac-loving company, but occasionally they come out with a Win/Mac product. The idea that their products are supposed to work on PCs is a joke! I had a Win/Mac MIDI interface by them and it not only crashed all the time, but if anything happened to the USB bus, it would think it was disconnected, and I would have to re-install the drivers. I checked around about this product, and I wasn't th eonly one having the problem. Another cool thing it would do is a sort of "train wreck" effect, where, after I'd press play, nothing would happen, then 5-6 seconds later, it would play ALL the notes it missed since I pressed play. You know, the joystick MIDI adapter on my SB64 always worked, first time, every time.

I currently use an M-audio Audiophile, which is USB, and it's really robust. It gets a ton of use and abuse; plus, the cable gets unplugged and plugged all the time for all sorts of reasons, and it hardly skips a beat and recovers seamlessly. I'm actually sort of shocked the drivers are that smart. So M-audio gets my approval. Their parent company, Digidesign, came from a Mac background, and they are slow to transition. I own Pro Tools, but only because it's an industry standard. Windows-friendly and robust, it isn't.

i didn't know that m-audio was part of digidesign ... i have the audiophile too ( the old school pci one ) and i never had real problems with its drivers but i also never tried it on vista either ...

[vasyachkin]

> but anyway im running Vista X64 and i need a
> soundcard for playback only. for the most
> part i will only use digital outputs and
> pretty much never will use internal DACs so
> i don't even need any in the card itself.

The output from any device will be either single output multichannel digital to be fed to a decoder or line level channels which can only be derived from a decoding section of some sort on the card. You use one or other. Some top level cards have outputs for seven or eight channels, but these are often external devices.

Another alternative may be to use a digital out and get a separate decoder

> would like to have something with
> BULLETPROOF DRIVERS

Bullettproof drivers.... on Vista???? roflmao !!!!


(Originally posted by: george of the jungle)

hehe, good one about vista drivers ...

but anyway i don't understand what you're saying about outputs

i have no issues with external DACs, i am using one now and i intend to always use them.

i would like a card that has 4 separate sets of stereo digital outputs ( in at least 24bit/96khz ) but one that can at the same time function as a 7.1 card ( even if through software )

?

[Taterworks]

When it comes to more mass-market sound cards, I've been thrilled with my ASUS Xonar D2*. It's got a machine-verified 118dB SNR on all seven channels, the ability to drive 5Vpp swings on all seven analog channels, Burr-Brown PCM1796 DACs, and Burr-Brown OPA237 opamps in the output stages for all channels. Through my Beyerdynamic DT770 headphones, it sounds heavenly. Optical and coaxial digital I/O just add icing to the cake. The card is based on an ASUS-rebranded C-Media CMI8788 audio processor, and with updated drivers, now supports effects equivalent to Creative's EAX 5.0 in EAX 5.0 games. The only caveat is that DSP is handled in software, which may cause it to eat up a few tenths of a percent more processing power, but that's a pittance on modern CPUs (and I use an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ CPU, so I'm not even talking about something like a 45nm Core 2 Duo or Quad.) Might be something else worth looking into. Low-latency ASIO drivers...check. Vista driver support is also significantly better than Creative's.

http://techgage.com/article/asus_xonar_d2_sound_card/

*the D2X is equivalent, but uses a PCI-Express 1x connector and requires an additional power connector.

[vasyachkin]

When it comes to more mass-market sound cards, I've been thrilled with my ASUS Xonar D2*. It's got a machine-verified 118dB SNR on all seven channels, the ability to drive 5Vpp swings on all seven analog channels, Burr-Brown PCM1796 DACs, and Burr-Brown OPA237 opamps in the output stages for all channels. Through my Beyerdynamic DT770 headphones, it sounds heavenly. Optical and coaxial digital I/O just add icing to the cake. The card is based on an ASUS-rebranded C-Media CMI8788 audio processor, and with updated drivers, now supports effects equivalent to Creative's EAX 5.0 in EAX 5.0 games. The only caveat is that DSP is handled in software, which may cause it to eat up a few tenths of a percent more processing power, but that's a pittance on modern CPUs (and I use an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ CPU, so I'm not even talking about something like a 45nm Core 2 Duo or Quad.) Might be something else worth looking into. Low-latency ASIO drivers...check. Vista driver support is also significantly better than Creative's.

http://techgage.com/article/asus_xonar_d2_sound_card/

*the D2X is equivalent, but uses a PCI-Express 1x connector and requires an additional power connector.

if you think that having 4 cores and 8 gigs of ram ( like me ) is going to make your computer fast you obviously are not running vista ( like me ). truth of the matter is my computer is only a little faster than "usable" and last thing i need is hardware that handles its business in software.

plus I DON'T PLAY GAMES BECAUSE THOUGH YOU MAY NOT BELIEVE IT I AM NOT 12 YEARS OLD. i only need a sound card for MUSIC and maybe occasionally movies.

my concern is that i intend to use STRICTLY STEREO gear such as behringer crossovers and i don't think i can interface them with a surround sound output from a gaming card. instead i want STEREO outputs such as AES/EBU but have at least FOUR PAIRS of them such that i could also run 7.1 if necessary.

in other words i would like to connect FOUR behringer digital crossovers to the card each to its own digital output.

makes sense ?

[vasyachkin]

ok i just updated the patchmix DPS application ( updated version was released a week ago ) and it no longer eats 2 gigabytes of my ram. in fact now it uses just 20 megabytes as one might expect. it seems i upgraded my ram for nothing ...

but EMU can never get their sh1t straight. with every update they fix something but something else remains broken. for example i can't set my soundcard to 96khz and have anything but 96khz upsampled stream form Foobar work. i have to run a 192khz card at 44khz in order for it to actually work! this is kinda lame ...