Looking for a USB Audio Interface for Windows under $1,000

[Johnny Don't!]

Ok J, just trying to keep "technical" terms as pure as possible. Lots of people "know what you mean" but the newbs won't. I like to start them off a'right? You are talking about Word Length and it is often wrongly stated as "bit rate". "Resolution" is of course about 6dB per bit and does not change with word length nor sample rate.

Ha, I dig yer style; I like yer moves. Haha. I am usually VERY particular about words in general, but especially technical terms...it seems that "resolution" has become the umbrella term for "digital recording quality." I see and hear it used by EVERYONE, literally everyone: I've articles from guys Chris Lord Algae where he uses the term (or doesn't bother correcting the interviewer), and I hear just about every engineer in every Chicago studio I work in using it: "What reso are you at? Make sure its 88.2/24." Hell, the drummer in one of my bands is an electrical engineer at Shure up north of me and even HE uses it. Haha.

There has been a huge debate everywhere, forever whether sample rates above 44.1/48kHz are worthwhile. There seems to be agreement that in SOME circumstances higher rates give a marginal improvement on some content but for most of us, most of the time, bog S rates are fine.

Well...as you probably would agree, the low end is typically the hardest part of a mix to get "right." I find that if I track & mix at 88.2/24 as opposed to 44.1/24 (or even 16...yuck), I have an easier time dealing with the low end, much like I do when I'm working with tape. In terms of high end stuff, most listeners have destroyed most of their range above 15-16k anyway...and like the popular recording/musicians' meme shows, we're all spending TONS of money on great mics and mic pres and tube gear and monitors and room treatments...only to have most people download the tune in mp3 format at 192kpbs and listen on shitty Apple earbuds. Hahahahaha. So maybe we should just go back to acetone discs. ;-)

But. like "rms" bloody watts, I am losing the battle I think!

Yes, the loudness war blows goats; I realized the other day it probably has a lot to do with shortened attention spans.

BTW that interface MUST be old! Even my old M-A PCI card was 24 NINETYSIX!

Nah, not that old, just not that great. HAHAHAHAHAH see what I mean??? I just jumped on Sweetwater's site to verify I had the specs right on my old interface, and they it list as "24-bit/96kHz resolution." I shit you not.
I should clarify, however: it wasn't the lack of higher quality "resolutions" on the old interface; it was the revealing of the low-quality pres at the higher "resolutions" that was the issue.

See ya around, Daddio, and keep fighting the accurate terminology fight!!

 

[ecc83]

Thanks for taking it all in good part Johnny. I actually meant that the lower rates are fine for the vast majority of HR forumites (like me!) I can quite easily see that in the esoteric world of the big pro studios 96k and above would hold sway. (if only to impress some visiting celebrity!)

"Rms watts was nothing to do with the loudness war but no matter.

Keep rockin'

Dave.

 

[Johnny Don't!]

Thanks for taking it all in good part Johnny. I actually meant that the lower rates are fine for the vast majority of HR forumites (like me!) I can quite easily see that in the esoteric world of the big pro studios 96k and above would hold sway. (if only to impress some visiting celebrity!)

"Rms watts was nothing to do with the loudness war but no matter.

Keep rockin'

Dave.

Huh, I thought you were referring to RMS loudness measurements...what does that mean then? 'Splain me please.

 

[ecc83]

Huh, I thought you were referring to RMS loudness measurements...what does that mean then? 'Splain me please.

Ok. The power output of an amplifier is normally measured as a voltage across a specific value of resistance at a nominal level of distortion. The AC voltage measured is the "Root Mean Squared" value and that means THAT value that has the equivalent heating effect as if it was Direct Current. We could of course instead measure the current through the load (never do!) and that too would be the RMS value of the amperes.

But then, either due to laziness, ignorance or both, manfctrs began calling such a measurement watts "RMS" and there is no such thing, it is a mathematical absurdity. They should really say "continuous sine power".

Then, the RMS value is different for different waveforms. For sines it is 0.707 times the peak value. Thus our familiar "0dBu" has an RMS value of 0.775V and a peak value of 1.0985V (shall we say 1.1 for jazz?). A perfect square wave has the same RMS as peak value because it "fills up" the whole space.

Dave.

 

[Johnny Don't!]

Ok. The power output of an amplifier is normally measured as a voltage across a specific value of resistance at a nominal level of distortion. The AC voltage measured is the "Root Mean Squared" value and that means THAT value that has the equivalent heating effect as if it was Direct Current. We could of course instead measure the current through the load (never do!) and that too would be the RMS value of the amperes.

But then, either due to laziness, ignorance or both, manfctrs began calling such a measurement watts "RMS" and there is no such thing, it is a mathematical absurdity. They should really say "continuous sine power".

Then, the RMS value is different for different waveforms. For sines it is 0.707 times the peak value. Thus our familiar "0dBu" has an RMS value of 0.775V and a peak value of 1.0985V (shall we say 1.1 for jazz?). A perfect square wave has the same RMS as peak value because it "fills up" the whole space.

Dave.

Whaddaya mean, "never" measure the current across the load?? I love doing that. I particularly enjoy using my index fingers as leads. Haha.

I gotcha now, I didn't realize you were referring to amplified circuits...shoulda figgered that out from the keyword "watts." Not as in Mike or Reggie, but as in VxA. ;-)