Old 11-11-2007, 05:27 PM   #1
liquid boy
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Default m-audio audiophile 2496 or audigy 2zs

i'm trying to decide which to buy

the m-audio card will be more geared toward recording right? better D/A converters?

the creative card has opportunity for 4 mono inputs with kx drivers (although only at 16bit for now)
right?

if you had the choice, and the prices were similar, which one would you go for?
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Old 11-11-2007, 05:48 PM   #2
NobleWordz
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Quote:
Originally Posted by liquid boy View Post
i'm trying to decide which to buy

the m-audio card will be more geared toward recording right? better D/A converters?

the creative card has opportunity for 4 mono inputs with kx drivers (although only at 16bit for now)
right?

if you had the choice, and the prices were similar, which one would you go for?
I was recently researching sound cards, and eventually I came to the conclusion that the 2496 was the right card for me. Its not expensive, its 24bit and the drivers are rock solid.

Do you need 4 mono inputs? if so the 2496 isn't for you. Choose a card that fits your needs.
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Old 11-11-2007, 06:22 PM   #3
bullshark
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I'd go for the Audiophile, no question. I'm currently running two for 4 mono input on the same system, one which has been running trouble free daily for the last 7 years, and I've got another one for another system on the way. Love those cards, indestructible, rock solid driver and very good sound quality. And Reaper perform extremely well with those cards.

Only thing is running Vista is currently not possible with any M-Audio Delta product. If I needed to run Vista, or needed a mobile solution, I'd look elsewhere (but not toward any Creative product).
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Old 11-11-2007, 06:31 PM   #4
TedR
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I used the audiophile 24/96 for quite some time, excellent sound quality, a wonderful card.

It has received many rave reviews from folks in the recording industry.


Ted
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Old 11-11-2007, 07:22 PM   #5
liquid boy
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i'm thinking of the future. for now, i'm just using 2 mono inputs, but ii'll need 4 in the future.

do you think there'd be a sound quality differnce between the two cards?

the thing that attracts me to the audigy, is that, when the kx drivers support 24bit asio,(they're working on it apparently), i'll be able to have 4 mono inputs, without buying an other sound card.
money is very tight for me. i'm looking to spend as little as possible, although i realise there's a limit

at the moment, i'm using a soundblaster live, with a tape deck acting as the mic pre-amp, so i guess anything's a step up from that eh?
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Old 11-11-2007, 07:29 PM   #6
Diogenes
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Consider am EMU 1212M? You can find 'em relatively cheap. The converters and clock are excellent and out of the box you get a pair of analog I/O plus S/PDIF I/O (just like the M-Audio 24/96) AND... when you scrape up a little more cash, you can add EIGHT more I/O via the ADAT link. All you need is an ADAT enabled mic pre like the Behringer ADA8000 or M-Audio Octane or...

D
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Old 11-21-2007, 03:17 AM   #7
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Do yourself a favour and ditch the wanky Soundbastard and Fraudigy cards . . . you'll be glad you did.

The 48 kHz sample rate lock and all the silly reconverting both suck and blow at the same time for musicians' purposes, especially if you are recording stuff that is destined for CD. Among other things, you never get to hear what your final mix ACTUALLY sounds like at 44.1 kHz until you burn it to CD and listen to it on a regular CD player on a different system, because any 44.1 kHz WAV file you listen to through the Fraudigy/Soundbastard is being reconverted in real time back to 48 kHz through some very crap sample rate converters. Fuxxin' ridiculous!

You'll find proper musicians'/recording interfaces much more flexible, and the sound quality (both on the way in and on the way out) WILL be better.

Also, a lot of times you'll find various inputs on the Soundbastard/Fraudigy cards to be quite noisy (and in certain cases completely unusable for anything remotely critical).

Also, you can't clock the Soundbastard/Fraudigy cards to external sources, so that eliminates the possibilities for using the SPDIF I/O with certain devices. Also, the word clock on the Soundbastard/Fraudigy cards is significantly less stable (resulting in poorer sound quality, less stable imaging, etc.) than most of the other audio interfaces on the market today, even the bottom of the barrel pro-sumer audio interfaces.

If you get the Audiophile or the Emu 1212M (or even the Emu 0404, which was like $100 new for the PCI version, and probably a good bit cheaper now on ebay), you'll have much better sound quality and infinitely better flexibility (not to mention sh*loads less fiddling around with the kx project drivers), and you can always add another two channels via SPDIF with something like an M-Audio Flying Cow or Flying Calf external A/D converter (which you can often find on ebay for a very reasonable price). Or, in the case of the Emu 1212M, you'll also have the option (as Diogenes mentioned above) to add 8 more channels of I/O via ADAT. Or you could even get yourself a nice little ouboard reverb unit like the TC M300 that you can use via SPDIF, and can also be used as a standalone A/D converter via SPDIF to add a couple of extra channels of input.

Fair play to Eugene for all his work with the kx project drivers and all, but seriously . . . you can get SO MUCH MORE of an audio interface for such a pittance these days, it's almost completely ridiculous to f**k around with those wanky Soundbastard/Fraudigy cards . . . unless of course you're into pushing these gamers' cards to the bleeding edge of what they can accomplish solely for the sake of doing it. You certainly won't be doing it for the sake of the music or quality recording!

And, yes, I know from personal experience having wasted many hours fiddling around with these wanky cards and kx project drivers in the past. Believe me . . . you'll find yourself feeling quite liberated once you've switched to a PROPER audio interface that doesn't impose arbitrary limits on you and generally try to get in the way of making your music.

Don't get me wrong . . . you can certainly make some good music with those cards. I have some stuff that I recorded on a Fraudigy that was released commercially and actually charted as high as number 2 on the European world music charts. But I certainly wouldn't choose to record with a Fraudigy again unless it was literally all I had available.

And have I mentioned that the Soundbastard/Fraudigy cards are complete and utter wank? I just wanted to make sure I've made myself quite clear on this issue.
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Last edited by scottdru; 11-21-2007 at 03:36 AM.
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Old 11-21-2007, 03:34 AM   #8
planetnine
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Default M-Audio Delta?

if you like the idea of four ins and outs, look around for a 2nd-hand Delta-44 or Delta-66. balanced ins and outs on proper 1/4" jacks, 24/96 operation, -and you can always add a second card to your machine at a later date to add more inputs if you needed them...
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Old 11-21-2007, 04:43 AM   #9
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i agree with scottdru. +1000
another option is `the esi julie gets pretty good reviews .
might be another possible to look at.
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Old 11-21-2007, 06:55 AM   #10
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Mmmm, this is difficult Liquid Boy. I think I would wait until Scott has made up his mind and take his advice then
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Old 12-30-2007, 07:27 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spikemullings View Post
Mmmm, this is difficult Liquid Boy. I think I would wait until Scott has made up his mind and take his advice then
LOL!
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