High end Computer soundcard ?

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Henckel

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Joined 2002
home19.inet.tele.dk/henckel/
#1
Hi

I am seeking advice on which high end sound card to purchase, and i mean "High end" in the Audio meaning of the word.

It might be off the shelf card or modification of the DA and Analog stage of a soundcard.

The reason for having this request is two-folded:


- I have very good results with room compensation when using DRC 2.0

- The new Windows Media player 9 supports HDCD encoded CD´s

And i am looking for ways to turn my PC into my Primary source for High end sound


As a reference i am using a Terratec 24/96LT card today with AKM D/A converters. The card supports 24 bit/ 96 K sampling - This will be a minimum (and sufficient?)

Recomendations for external DAC´s would also be much welcomed. either DIY or off the shelf products.

The creative bunch of cards are not worth considering in this respect (unless modified ?)

Morten
 
#2
I have looked extensively at this and pretty much come up short on all counts -- but there is light at the end of the tunnel. The new Envy 24 HT chipsets are extremely good on paper (they are constructed properly with full bit paths etc -- very impressive!) and are available in low cost sound cards from Terratec (Aureon Space) and M-Audio. Since this is a DIY site I recommend these which should allow you to have a ticket to high-end audio (after your own modifications to those boards) starting at around $100 or so ...

Other companies that provide more or less great units are: Egosys, RME, MOTU, Lynx etc. Cost is usually prohibitive though, but Egosys has some interesting units based on the Envy 24 HT chipset at several hundred dollars.

Creative has no solution worthy of any high-end system given their inherent resampling to 48KHz for ALL content even on Audigy2, Extigy etc.

Intel have also made a roadmap at the latest developer forum indicating properly constructed audio paths in about 12 months -- where the PC is intended to be the signal source (and extend from there). I firmly belive this will happen and must say I am astonished that it has not happened already!

Now, what is DRC 2.0 and where do I get it?

Petter

Petter
 
#3
DRC - highly recommended is available from:

http://freshmeat.net/projects/drc/?topic_id=114

In the manual there is a link to a guide ( dont have the link handy at the moment) that describes the process

on the soundcard issue i would agree that the Envy 24 HT is looking impressiv - will go for M-audio as they in gerenral has better drivers than Terratec.

has anyone tried to midifi any of these cards?

Morten
 
#4
I tried to modify an Extigy, and found the process quite simple, even without data sheet, but decided it was not worth the effort given the obvious limitations of resampling to 48KHz that Creative probably will suffer with forever -- for the Envy, I have a data sheet which should help a lot. Also, as long as the DAC chips themselves are not used as volume controls, it is usually very easy to replace them with whatever you want. Step 1 of modifications though is of course power supply, then possibly clock, shielding, op-amp replacements, IV converter etc. I would hazard a guess that a daughter card would be the way to go.

Petter
 
#5
Henckel said:
on the soundcard issue i would agree that the Envy 24 HT is looking impressiv - will go for M-audio as they in gerenral has better drivers than Terratec.
Click to expand...


I would suggest the Lynx Two or Lynx One. Pricey, but no higher end in terms of sound quality. Two channels only, and about 700 bux, but two channels of the purest computer audio.

Envy HT is good, but those are not really 'high-end' cards. The Delta 1010 and Delta 66 are actually better cards, as is the m-Audio Audiophile (2-channel). Most of these cards will not have the kind of featureset that the cards based on the 24HT offer, but will generally have superior converters, high-quality clocks, well-thought out design from POV of RF immunity, etc. - they are systems for the guy who's making the music, so...

m-Audio is the closest to commercial in the pro world as can be, so while they have excellent driver support etc. I would be careful. They are gradually turning into another 'Creative' as far as I can tell, only with much better products and philosophy.

Mid-fi tests are available. Some Googling and checking at the manufacturer websites for reviews is helpful... You can also join up discussion groups at www.homerecording.com to find out more from people who actually own and use these cards on a daily basis.
 
#7
How about this approach which I am getting into:

1. Get a PC with a decent digital output
2. Purchase a Behringer DCX2496 unit and get 2 channel digital input with 6 channel analog output (+ digital crossover and room correction in time/frequency domain as well.).

Now all you have to do is get 6 monoblocks to drive your three way speakers 🙂

Petter
 
#9
I wonder, is there any high-end AD/DA cards availble at all? Isn't this against the nature? Isn't the solution digital I/O card with fibre connection to a high-end DAC/ADC?
Click to expand...

Probably the best solution - however over my budget



Purchase a Behringer DCX2496 unit and get 2 channel digital input with 6 channel analog output (+ digital crossover and room correction in time/frequency domain as well.).
Click to expand...

The Behringer is not available yet ?

Volumen control on the digital side ?

D/A converter/ analog stage of the Behringer ?

But in the long the way to go Combined with all digital power amplifiers..... like Apogee/TACT( Ouch $)
 
#11
Good questions about Ultracurve, Henckel.

I looked at this before, and am relatively sure from the manual that it is possible to dial in digital gain for all channels simultanously. The manual sucks in this regard 🙁 as any fool with half a brain should expect most customers to be extremely interested in this (and it should be stated in the datasheet as well!)

However, I expect that I will soon make my own analog volume control. I am pretty sure that the unit does not use any sort of volume option built into the DAC itself (which would be a shame if it did, really) because this would make the task of grafting in a super high-end unit harder.

The output stage appears to be acceptable, and so does the DAC chip. I expect that I will eventually bypass all of that with my own stuff 🙂

I also expect it will be much easier to modify and have fun doing modifications with this type of unit rather than a PC based unit.

Availability: I am supposed to get mine in 2 weeks. Don't know if that is for real or not.

Petter
 
#15
Henckel said:

As a reference i am using a Terratec 24/96LT card today with AKM D/A converters. The card supports 24 bit/ 96 K sampling - This will be a minimum (and sufficient?)

Recomendations for external DAC´s would also be much welcomed. either DIY or off the shelf products.
Click to expand...

Morten,

I'd be curious to know what kind of crystals or oscillators are on the Terratec (I suspect it is a 6fire 24/96 LT)?

I guess the design would be a single 27 MHz or whatever master clock, and the audio clock would be generated from this via a PLL. In this case, it would be really hard to get really low jitter playback even from an external DAC. The way to go would then be to clock the external DAC from a local (e.g.) 16.9344 MHz oscillator and genererate the master clock for the soundcard from this via PLL. Unfortunately, there do not seem to be any preconfigured PLLs for this direction (only 27 -> 16.9344).

Regards,

Eric
 
#16
Digigram

I have both the PCX9 and the PCX+11. Neither is cheap - 3300 to 2500 street price. However, they are excellent cards. They are professional cards - aes/ebu balanced inputs/outputs. They have a very good SDK (sofware development kit) that allows you to build things and adapt it to your needs. Does digital mixing, supports multiple codecs, including high bit rate MPEG Layer 2 and 3, as well as others adaptible to AAC and just about everything else. Has ability to either generate clock or accept clock from other sources.

Just as important - comes with certification sheet with .1 dB resolution 20 to 20K. I intend to build a room correction system with it - once I buy a mike that matches its ability.

I got these cards as a result of professional use in broadcasting - widely used. Highly recommended.
 
#17
capslock Wrote

I'd be curious to know what kind of crystals or oscillators are on the Terratec (I suspect it is a 6fire 24/96 LT)?
Click to expand...

The card is Terratec DMX 6Fire 24/96 and the crystals are;

24.576 ( Xin1 used for build in codec - disregard)

22.5792 ( Xin2 - Pro section According to ENVY24 Data sheet)


The 22.5792 could be feed by a KWAK-CLOCK or by a LClock XO 2
rendering low jitter - compared to the standard supplied Crystal.

Second option is to use the Toslink or SPDIF input as master clock for the card and feeding it with a low jitter clock. It will be Locked unto by the cs 8427 digital receiver which in turn is connected to the ENVY24 SPMCLKIN

Btw the analog uotput form the AKM 4524 Vf goes to a 4580 Dual Op-amp and then into a 22 myF electrolytic capacitor - The latter will be my first attempt to modify the card.

br

Morten
 
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