Delta 410 or AP 2496?

[Progger]

Which is better quality? The 410 has more I/Os, but is cheaper, which seems to be kind of a red flag. What's the tradeoff, if there is one?

 

[Bulls Hit]

The 2496 also give you Midi, but fewer outs.

They both use the same A/D D/A converters so there's no tradeoff. The 410 used to be a lot more expensive than the 2496, but I think maybe M-Audio are running them out. Just guessing here tho'

 

[Dick Flansen]

The 410 has been discontinued, which is the reason for the lower price - inventory blowout.

But yes, I've had both cards, and they sound identical. I think they're great! The delta series cards have big problems with the VIA chipset, however, so check your motherboard specs first...

 

[LemonTree]

The delta series cards have big problems with the VIA chipset, however, so check your motherboard specs first...

I've ran delta cards on a few systems dating back to the Via KT133 chipset and never had a problem. This is how myths get started.

 

[Dick Flansen]

Yeah, I think it really depends on the setup - I previously ran delta cards on a via chipset with Athlon (can't remember which chipset) and had nothing but problems, then switched to a mobo with an AMD 751 chipset - now it's rock solid.

Let's put it this way: the ONLY time I've ever heard of anybody having problems with delta cards, it ended up being because of the VIA chipset. Mostly I think this affected older mobos with slower processors, but... the general trend seems to be that via chipsets are not highly recommended for audio work, and I stand by that part at least!

 

[Bulls Hit]

I'm using a delta 44 with an Athlon 1800+ and the VIA KM133 chipset. I start getting dropouts once the track count gets up around 20 or so.

I had terrible noise troubles when I first installed the 44, but an upgrade to XP sorted that.

I'm happy enough with what I've got at the moment, but I definitely won't be going for AMD/VIA on my next machine. It will be Intel/Intel all the way