PCI Card sub par quality?

[kwokwok]

Hi All!

i recently installed a M-Audio Delta 1010lt PCI card to record multiple channels from a mixer (or another 2 channel mic preamp) into my computer..

but then my friend told me PCI cards are outdated and their A/D conversion quality is not as good as the newer firewire/USB2 outboard gear...

is this true?

 

[wheelema]

No.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/520134-REG/Digigram_VB149800501_miXart_8_ES_.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/517091-REG/RME_HDSP_MADI_E_HDSPe_MADI_PCIe.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/609107-REG/Solid_State_Logic_726907X2_MadiXtreme_128_MADI.html

Nothing is faster then a A/D/A converter (soundcard) that sits on the PCI buss. Not FireWire (1394), not USB... nothing. The 'problem' with them is that they sit on the PCI buss... and are thus limited to the platforms that will accept them. The beauty of USB and FireWire (1394) A/D/A converters is their interoperability with virtually all (current) computers, thus enjoying a larger pool of prospective customers.

Many n00bies look at gear that was designed in the 90's (and earlier) and sneer. But the 24/96 (or 24/192 if you prefer) converters designed fifteen years or so in the past are not automatically inferior to the converters being used today. I'll take an 'old' Apogee or Cranesong A/D/A converter over pretty much any contemporary offering any day of the week.

I like the M-Audio Fast Track Pro (a recent USB A/D/A converter) a lot, but you know what? It won't drive my Shure SM7B. My 'old' M-Audio 1010LT will however, and sound f'ing fantastic doing it.

The reality is that YOUR EARS decide what sounds good. You should choose your gear based on whether or not it meets your needs and sounds good to you. Avoid gear snobs... they're never happy.

 

[Jim Lad]

Good advice, wheelema.
I'm a Fast Track Pro fan too but it does get bogged down when you start adding too many midi tracks.
The Echo Mona, however, comes with a PCI card and it's as slick as the day it was manufactured.
The only problem I've encountered is that the newer boards have altered the voltage for PCI cards and although the card may actually fit in the new slots, the gold bars don't line up. That's to save the card & board from damage.
But here's the good news: The older PCI cards do just as well on an old Compaq C as the newer ones do on the new boards and still, to my knowledge, better than USB or Firewire.
It's always good to listen to your friends' advice but if the card's working for you, go with it.

 

[Bristol Posse]

The converters on the PCI cards made by M-audio, EMU etc are slightly older tech. You would probably have to have more than $30K invested in room treatment, Input chain and output chain and prefect ears to even begin to judge IF that makes any difference at all to the sound

and although the card may actually fit in the new slots, the gold bars don't line up

As far as I know a PCI card should always fit in a PCI or PCIX slot (assuming form factor of the case etc gives you enough space for the card to fit) but if you are putting a PCI card into a PCIX slot you may need to adjust Bus voltages in the BIOS
However a PCI card will not fit or work in a PCIE slot so you need check there are the correct slots available on your motherboard and if you are going PCI card to PCIX slot that you are able to adjust the voltages accordingly.

 

[mshilarious]

Conversion actually on the PCI card is trickier because there's analog circuitry that must get its power from the PC (which often has dirty power). But if properly designed it works fine.

There are lots of higher-end PCI cards that are mainly designed to support outboard converters; RME is a good example.

 

[Jim Lad]

The older cards do not work on the new boards, Bristol Posse.
As I said, the voltage has changed and to prevent damage, the gold bars will not line up.
In some new boards, the cards will actually fit in the slots although a bit tight.
Just the way it is, I'm afraid.

 

[TimOBrien]

Stop listening to your friend.

The bus the data comes in on (PCI, Firewire, USB) has NOTHING to do with quality.
It's only a way to move data.

USB is the slowest, Firewire is closer to PCI and PCI is the fastest.

That has NOTHING to do with A/D or D/A quality. That's taken care of before it's streamed to the bus that goes to the CPU.

 

[dgatwood]

The folks posting in this thread aren't wrong, but neither is your friend. Reality is somewhat more complicated.

If you compare a high-end PCI interface from ten or fifteen years ago (e.g. Apogee), you'd have a hard time hearing a difference when comparing it with decent quality gear today. Unfortunately, nobody could afford those rigs, so there aren't a lot of them out there on the used market. Thus, most people compare relatively low-end gear from ten years ago with relatively low-end gear from today. When you do that, your friend is absolutely right.

The quality of better components hasn't really improved a lot in the past fifteen years, but the cost of better components has dropped dramatically. Electronic hardware design is about striking a balance between quality and component cost in order to hit a particular price point. Because the manufacturers can now get better parts at the same price point, low-end designs today often sound as good as higher-end hardware from just a few years ago. Most of those differences are not the converters, but rather the outboard analog components—capacitors in the signal path, FETs and op amps, etc.

Having personally compared the 1010LT to the FW1814, Presonus FIREPOD, etc., the difference in conversion quality is audible even with an untreated room, cheap mics, and junk pres. The 1010LT's A/D conversion is okay. The D/A conversion is terrible. That's not because it's PCI, but because it's very old low-end gear. Similarly, it uses PCI because it is an old design.

I'm as guilty as your friend when it comes to overgeneralizing and recommending avoiding PCI gear for sound quality reasons. That's probably right only about 80% of the time (there's strong correlation), and only if you're comparing them to *good* USB or FireWire gear. There are plenty of crappy sounding USB interfaces out there, but we don't talk about them much because most of them cost $20 or less and are built into a microphone. Just another example of the low end shifting.

Just to drive the point home, if the component quality were similar, the Delta 1010LT would not sell for about $150 while the FIREPOD sells for about $450. It's a decent starter interface, so long as you keep in mind that your recordings probably have a lot more clarity in the top end than they sound like when you play them back through the D/A conversion in that hardware.