I had the TOL Asus soundcard and it made good measurements but it couldn't do 44.1, 88.2, or 176.4 so I sold it in haste. I have a buffer setup for attenuating signals before a soundcard ADC.
I have a newer motherboard that was incompatible with my EMU 1616 PCI since the PCI slot isn't part of the H67 chipset (legacy slot.)
Just looking for USB and a quiet noise-floor, nothing too expensive.
Looks like the best bet is an EMU 0202 USB for taking decent measurements with Arta, RMAA, Audiotester, etc. Any other suggestions before I buy it ?
I have a newer motherboard that was incompatible with my EMU 1616 PCI since the PCI slot isn't part of the H67 chipset (legacy slot.)
Just looking for USB and a quiet noise-floor, nothing too expensive.
Looks like the best bet is an EMU 0202 USB for taking decent measurements with Arta, RMAA, Audiotester, etc. Any other suggestions before I buy it ?
the USB 0204 doesn't have a digital output does it?
I found this but the specs on the wolfson adc are poor:
QA01 USB to SPDIF Digital Sound Card Analog to SPDIF Coaxial Optical Converter | eBay
I found this but the specs on the wolfson adc are poor:
QA01 USB to SPDIF Digital Sound Card Analog to SPDIF Coaxial Optical Converter | eBay
I agree, not many motherboards have a 24/192 spdif input, at least one I would trust for measurements, with these new inexpensive asynch usb interfaces like CM6331 you would think someone would throw a good adc on one.
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Well if you believe in that multi thousand dollar ADC where reviewers are running J-test etc, then there is some group of folks who believe it does. I think the technology is there to match that device for a fraction of the cost.
I gave up. I use a external "Muse" dac (current BB chipset) for the output and a M-Audio Profire for the input. Why not use the Profire for both you say? Well, it seems all the semi-pro recording boxes insist on some amount of mixing input to output. I would think I was doing fine, but the results were suspicious, or I would move the mic in for nearfield, and get feedback. I was using my DCX for the output, but it is so darn noisy, I don't any more. Need to get off the PC and build a real power supply and better analog outputs, then it would be fine. One of the biggest problems is keeping the 60, 120, 180 harmonics out of the system.
BTW, I will NEVER deal with emu/creative again. The even admitted to the memory leak in their driver (1616m) and refused to do anything about it. Big money, total waste of time from an arrogant company. Darn shame as what a box it was! M-Audio has no real support either, just a users forum that one of their engineers trolls sometimes. They want you to PAY for all support. Not even having an e-mail , two business day question line is inexcusable in my book.
I got burnt by Emu on their 1616 card that wouldn't work with newer motherboards. The loss of native PCI really killed the soundcard market. It looks like Intel is keeping native USB 2.0 so those should be good for a few years.
I think the lack of asychronous USB soundcards (DAC & DAC) has been developers waiting on native USB 3 or thunderbolt, both of which support independent clocks, it would be nice to find a asynchronous USB ADC/DAC with independant PS.
The TOL Asus PCI-e cards are decent, I found a used Asus HDAV1.3 card for $75 which is as good as their STX. Either on of those is the best bet for now but I noticed that they haven't released win 8 drivers.
I think the lack of asychronous USB soundcards (DAC & DAC) has been developers waiting on native USB 3 or thunderbolt, both of which support independent clocks, it would be nice to find a asynchronous USB ADC/DAC with independant PS.
The TOL Asus PCI-e cards are decent, I found a used Asus HDAV1.3 card for $75 which is as good as their STX. Either on of those is the best bet for now but I noticed that they haven't released win 8 drivers.
Not happy I can't upgrade my computer as my Profire is FIREWIRE. I have a PCI-Firewire card, but there have been questions on comparability using Win 7 drivers in Win 8. (no Firewire drivers shipped with Win 8) Win 7 drivers SHOULD work under 8, but we are talking Microsoft here. It's bad enough I have to have a USB to RS232 converter to talk to my DCX. Bheringer really needs to strep up with a newer version and give us thumb-drive ports for external memory.
Are you saying the PCIx slot on a new MB is not native PCI? How about the PCIe? Those would have to be because that's where the video and SSD (good ones) boards plug in.
USB3 is I guess where we will have to go. Isn't Apple trying to keep Thunderbolt to themselves?
As far as independent power supplies, that lets you use batteries or build a real one. I bought a phantom power inline box from M-Audio that was powered by a half wave wall wart for my portable setup. It was so noisy it was useless, so I modified it to run on a single 9V battery. Works fine with my E8000.
Are you saying the PCIx slot on a new MB is not native PCI? How about the PCIe? Those would have to be because that's where the video and SSD (good ones) boards plug in.
USB3 is I guess where we will have to go. Isn't Apple trying to keep Thunderbolt to themselves?
As far as independent power supplies, that lets you use batteries or build a real one. I bought a phantom power inline box from M-Audio that was powered by a half wave wall wart for my portable setup. It was so noisy it was useless, so I modified it to run on a single 9V battery. Works fine with my E8000.
PCI cards are not compatible with neither pci-e nor pci-x, but some riser cards exist with external pci card slots. It's cumbersome and I wouldn't advice going that route. Moreover the power coming from the computer is not the best, so I wouldn't consider any internal card ideal. Usb2 is the way to go.
I'm going for a separate oscillator/signal generator anyway. Honestly I expected more modding/DIY activity in this topic. Instead I found nobody that attempted to replace the ADC of an emu or such.
I'm going for a separate oscillator/signal generator anyway. Honestly I expected more modding/DIY activity in this topic. Instead I found nobody that attempted to replace the ADC of an emu or such.
Ah, that external PCI slot. I almost forgot about them. I guess most everything is built into laptops these days, so the need went away. I did not know there were sound cards that used them.
Not much on mods, mostly because we use these things for lo-fi, like speaker measurements. You'll find a lot more on moding the DCX, and over in the digital section, a lot on DAC's. Not much on ADC's though. I suspect if the truth be told, the digital portion of these boxes is not the problem. The power supply and analog is what needs work.
I still have my HP analog generator on the bench. Sometimes it is just plain handy.
Not much on mods, mostly because we use these things for lo-fi, like speaker measurements. You'll find a lot more on moding the DCX, and over in the digital section, a lot on DAC's. Not much on ADC's though. I suspect if the truth be told, the digital portion of these boxes is not the problem. The power supply and analog is what needs work.
I still have my HP analog generator on the bench. Sometimes it is just plain handy.
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