Audiophile 2496/Echo Mia/Terratec EWX2496 Audiosystem

S

Sangram

New member
Hi

I'm in the market for a soundcard under US$250, and I was considering the three cards above, based purely on research on the 'net. In this country, the best soundcard you can buy is the Creative SB Live! Platinum, which is much lower spec than any of the above, and it retails for about US$200 equivalent. I was thinking of getting someone to get one to buy a card in Singapore and bring it for me.

I like the MIDI(?) offered by the Audiophile and the Terratec, but am also tempted by the balanced in/out config of the Mia, as well as the fact that it seems to have 1/4 jacks, which are fairly sturdy. I don't own any balanced equipment yet and I'm not sure I'll need 'em because I plan to only make good-sounding home demos. Any opinions? Audigy's not yet been launched in the country, and should I just wait for it? I didn't think so myself, but it'll be good to hear your opinions on this.

I'm putting up some of the links I've been visiting during the research, in case you wanna have a look-see:

AudioPhile 2496
http://www.midiman.com/products/m-audio/audiophile.htm
http://www.midiman.com/company/media/reviews/computermusic_ap2496/cmreview.html

Echo Mia
http://www.echoaudio.com/
http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/jun01/articles/echomia.htm
http://music.multimedian.com/reviews/mia.html

Terratec EWX 2496 Audiosystem
http://www.terratec.net/ttus/default.htm
http://music.multimedian.com/reviews/ewx.html

More as I see, the Terratec is the choice I'm veering toward, followed by the AudioPhile and lastly the MIA. I see the major advantage of the MIA is the balanced config, but not having any balanced gear I'm not convinced it's a great advantage. Since the computer's also used for (very) casual gaming, I would like the card to also hold station during gaming.

Currently I'm monitoring through an extensively modified home hifi (no substitute, really) through the onboard sound of the Asus A7VL-VM. As you can probably tell, I'm not doing much recording... The NS-10s are next on my list, maybe in a month or so.

I would love for opinions on the cards themselves, and if anyone can point me out to resources that help me arrive at a decision, or gather a few more (better?) options on cards I could be looking at as alternatives. Thanks a ton, in advance.

Sang

Importing gear into a 3rd world country: The way it works is that a 'relative' going abroad collects money in advance, goes there with a shortlist of 2/3 items, and picks up the first one they find, unpacks it from the box and puts it into a bubble packing (to sidestep accurate valuation and pay ridiculous amounts of duty, upto 100% on declared value). This is then stashed between a few layers of shirts or personal clothing. In addition, the prospective buyer also pays for a bottle of whisky for the customs official. The buyer just gets the card and the CD, and adapters if any, in a polythene packet the next day. I had someone get a Takamine guitar this way for me.
 
Well it seems there is no bounds from where people read homerecording.com bbs! Certainly one of the more exotic locations I seen posters come from so far.

It really all depends on what u need to do with your card. All of the above cards are very good for the price. if you have no balanced gear then you dont really need a card with balanced I/O but simply becuase it has balanced IO certainly wont do any harm to the sound quality of your recordings!

How mnay tracks do you need to record simultaneously? What sort of thing are you recording? Do you require midi etc?

PS I think all of the above cards are reviewed on www.pcrecording.com too. Wel worth a look as the reviewer is just your average home recording enthusiast. Corporate pages tend to simply plug their products.
 
Hi Alchemist2K

Thanks for replying. I'm a solo musician, so one track at a time is really what I need. I'd like to have midi and Audio Cd compatibility, but I wouldn't mind sacrificing it for exceptional results, if any of the cards could give it to me.

I also checked out the Hoontech DSP24 value (I hate when that word is appended to anything!) and the Egosys Waveterminal, both capable of doing 'normal' soundcard duty with CD / game audio and being the pro soundcard when required.

I'm saw the reviews of the Mia and the Audiophile on pcrecording, and am impressed with both, the balanced in/outputs on the Mia seem a plus, but do balanced in/outputs make a difference to unbalanced connections? I'm recording acoustic guitar and vocals through a Marshall G30RCD and a local no-name mixer (soon out of the window). and I can't sing and play at the same time :-(

Thanks for the help.

Sang
 
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Hi

I'm recording through a pair of generic microphones. These are the top model made by an India Manufacturer, which are actually pretty good PA mics but not very great performers in the studio. Not bad mics, just some top end problems. In the enthusiasm to cut feedback, most of the high frequencies have been brutally cut off, but I think I could fix that once I open the capsules.

Both are Unidirectional Cardoids, pretty high spec stuff (-3db is at 20 Hz for the condensor mic, and at 40 Hz for the Dynamic mic) compared to their price (the two of 'em put me back about US$40) and perform OK. They feed into a mono mixer, which doesn't have phantom power (the cond. mic is powered by a 1.5 V AA battery housed in the mic body itself). The mixer puts out its sound through two unbalanced 1/4" jack sockets (like a guitar). Both these are identical, except for the fact that each has its own volume control. One of them is currently empty, and the other powers through a 1/4 to 1/8 cable (homebrewed with decent cable) to the input of the s/c.

The soundcard, being on-board VIA AC'97, has a noise floor of about -32 db on one channel and -28 db on the other, one of the reasons I desperately need a good card. The rest of the setup adds about 3 db of noise to the card, (before and after switching off the input, measured on n-track's vu meters) which I'm not sure is a terrible result.

I don't need phantom power and I'm not gonna be looking at upgrading my system till i'm absolutely compelled to. Knowing the way I play and how I sing, that's gonna be a long way away, by which time I should hopefully be able to make the move to a fully balanced setup.

I'm suddenly immensely attracted to the EgoSys Waveterminal which allows 24/96 and consumer requirements together. I'm still swayed by PCrecording's (among others) superlative praise of the sound of the Audiophile 24/96, and its amazing value for money. I even got a good workaround to get audio CDs playing on it, so it's looking more like my final choice. Basically now it's between this, the Terratec, Hoontech and the Egosys. I don't generally trust South Asian products and and old post I dug up says the analog inputs of the Hoontech are quite noisy, so that is eliminated, too. So I guess Egosys, Terratec and M-audio are in hot contention...

Thanks for your help. I can see some light over the horizon. I've eliminated at least the Echo Mia and the Hoontech from the list, now these three have to slug it out...

Sang
 
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