Delta 44 vs. SB Live!

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kylla

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An odd comparison it sounds like I know...

But, in relation to my previous thread:

I recorded a song of mine (directly of a Korg Triton) using both my Delta 44 and SB Live! in 16/44.1

I then did an A/B of both tracks and to be honest I can't really tell any quality improvement in the Delta recording. Now I've got pretty good ears, but I just couldn't really make out a noticeable improvement. I've been told by a number of people that the improvement in sound when recording on a Delta - even at the same rate eg: 16bit/44.1 - will be very noticable. That the sounds would be cleaner and much more dynamic range etc etc... but I can't really hear it.

Has anyone here with a Delta noticed a marked improvement in quality over, say, an SB Live?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there shouldn't be one, I was expetcing one, because I've heard nothing but great things about this card!! I just can't really hear it!

Cheers!
 
Your SB is not going to record at 24 bit for one, which will allow for better performance and dynamic range with editing and effects. At 16 bit there may not be that much of a difference but the A/D converters are much better in the 44.
And of course your SB has what..a 1/8 mic in plug vs. 2 1/4 analog ports on the breakout.
 
People don't just buy Delta's over SB Live's for just recording quality. Look at the other differences - Delta's have well written WDM and ASIO drivers that give you far superior performance than any Sound Blaster could.

The reason to use a Delta over a SB in the first place would be to record in 24bits. Even though you will mix down to 16bit/44.1kHz audio for mastering, 24bit audio is still a better starting point because there is less dithering when processing the recorded audio with effects and such.
 
When I switched from a SB Live to a SB Audigy, I noticed that recording from analog sources at 16 bit seemed to be a LITTLE quieter - not much, but silent passages in Audigy recording seemed noiseless.

Now that I'm using an Audiophile 2496, recording at 16 bit seems to sound the same as the Audigy.
 
I hear what you're saying brzilian but sadly, the drivers are not far superior in this case - as per my other post (and yes I realise it could be because I have not performed all tweaking I could) recording in 24/96 creates nasty pops and clicks... so right off the bad, that isn't superior performance at all... to drop a $600 card in and have it do what it's doing is pretty annoying.

Anyway, I agree with the whole mixdown thing you mentioned, and having that high-quality starting point is one of the main attractions of this card.
 
kylla said:
I hear what you're saying brzilian but sadly, the drivers are not far superior in this case - as per my other post (and yes I realise it could be because I have not performed all tweaking I could) recording in 24/96 creates nasty pops and clicks... so right off the bad, that isn't superior performance at all... to drop a $600 card in and have it do what it's doing is pretty annoying.
Click to expand...
You paid $600 for a Delta 44?!? That's even more expensive than in Norway! WOW! Where do you live? ;)

AnyWHO: It could be that your system is not up to the task (processor, memory, harddrive speed, etc). What is your system? Remember, 24bit/96kHz needs more processing power than 16bit/48kHz...
 
kylla said:
I hear what you're saying brzilian but sadly, the drivers are not far superior in this case - as per my other post (and yes I realise it could be because I have not performed all tweaking I could) recording in 24/96 creates nasty pops and clicks... so right off the bad, that isn't superior performance at all... to drop a $600 card in and have it do what it's doing is pretty annoying.

Anyway, I agree with the whole mixdown thing you mentioned, and having that high-quality starting point is one of the main attractions of this card.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you have some tweaking to do. My Audiophile records in 24bits with no problems on my P4. I was able to record in 24bits with my older PII-400 as well.
 
If you can't hear the difference, which is fairly large, then your monitoring system could be to blame. What are you monitoring on?

Bummer that you had to pay $600 for a $200 card!

Slackmaster 2000
 
Very interesting thread, kylla. This is the kind of comparison I was looking for in my thread. I have an SBLive and I'm just now weighing the pro's and cons of upgrading to something else.

The other thread is called "Recorded quality of distorted guitar sound" if you're interested.
 
One of the big differences will be in summing large numbers of tracks. I had an EMU APS equipped system which I used to record in 16 bit then I got an Echo Mia card and still record at 16 bit. At first I thought the same thing as you. "this is not noticably better" But listening to old mixes on CD really showed how much better the Echo is. Also tha EMU ran everything together into a stereo buss but the Mia has 8 internal busses. I can really hear the audio clean up when assigning audio tracks to busses. I don't need to record in 24 bit to hear the difference, my mixes are clear and nice compared to the buzzy type build-up I got from the old card.
 
I owned SB live platinum and upgraded to Terratec DMX 6 FIRE 24/96 and difference is huge.
Very audible.
I even called my friend (owner of SB platinum) so we first listened to a Dream Theater CD and then recorded some acoustic guitars in 24 bit and all he said was "How the hell can it sound that much better when the prices are similar"
But then again there are some earthing issues and motherboard incompatibilities which forced me to spend additional sum to make it work well.
 
Moskus,
My system is:

AMD Athlon XP 1700
MSI K7T266 Pro2 motherboard
512MB RAM
Leadtek Winfast GeForce3 TI-500
30GB Maxtor HDD
20BG IBM Desktar HDD
Windows XP (in ACPI mode)

So I've got a powerful-enough system... but of course, I've (now) read that Delta's have 'trouble' with VIA chips, but I'm going to be doing some tweaking.. basically if I can't get it to work it's going back, end of story.
 
Hey Slackmaster,

Yeah I expected the different to be huge hence this post - however, I'm monitoring on Boston Acoustics Digital Theatre speakers, is a 4.1 system but set to 2.1. They're pretty fat speakers, but perhaps I need to move up to some even phatter monitors?
 
Heh....well "phat" isn't desirable for monitoring. What you want is phlat....erm....I mean "flat". :)

The system you're using is designed to sound big, not accurate :( Good for listening, bad for monitoring...know what I mean?

Slackmaster 2000
 
busses eh

"jake-owa One of the big differences will be in summing large numbers of tracks. I had an EMU APS equipped system which I used to record in 16 bit then I got an Echo Mia card and still record at 16 bit. At first I thought the same thing as you. "this is not noticably better" But listening to old mixes on CD really showed how much better the Echo is. Also tha EMU ran everything together into a stereo buss but the Mia has 8 internal busses. I can really hear the audio clean up when assigning audio tracks to busses. I don't need to record in 24 bit to hear the difference, my mixes are clear and nice compared to the buzzy type build-up I got from the old card."

That thing you mentioned about the busses, and how your old card only had two, and your new one has 8. Do you mean that your old card was just a stereo card like a sb, with a left and right input/output, and your new card has 8?
That just caught my attention, because i mix in logic audio, and i notice there are a lot of different busses, but i don't really use them, i don't think. Well what i mean is, i load all of my tracks into the tracks at the begging of the track mixer window, and when i scroll really far down to the right, near the main output and master volume, i see a bunch of busses, but they go un-used. Am i supposed to assign thngs to them for better sound? Im only using a sb live right now but im going to buy a delta 44 very very soon.

Sorry i know this is off topic, but i am not very good at using logic audio, and i just got back from travelling for 5 weeks so im getting even hazier. I thought this might be something big and important im not doing.

thanks
 
I went from the SB Live! to the Delta 44. At first I went just for the inputs and features, but for myself, I can hear a difference that is better with the Delta, even when recorded at the same sampling rates.

Micro
 
Re: busses eh

ambi said:
"jake-owa One of the big differences will be in summing large numbers of tracks. I had an EMU APS equipped system which I used to record in 16 bit then I got an Echo Mia card and still record at 16 bit. At first I thought the same thing as you. "this is not noticably better" But listening to old mixes on CD really showed how much better the Echo is. Also tha EMU ran everything together into a stereo buss but the Mia has 8 internal busses. I can really hear the audio clean up when assigning audio tracks to busses. I don't need to record in 24 bit to hear the difference, my mixes are clear and nice compared to the buzzy type build-up I got from the old card."

That thing you mentioned about the busses, and how your old card only had two, and your new one has 8. Do you mean that your old card was just a stereo card like a sb, with a left and right input/output, and your new card has 8?
That just caught my attention, because i mix in logic audio, and i notice there are a lot of different busses, but i don't really use them, i don't think. Well what i mean is, i load all of my tracks into the tracks at the begging of the track mixer window, and when i scroll really far down to the right, near the main output and master volume, i see a bunch of busses, but they go un-used. Am i supposed to assign thngs to them for better sound? Im only using a sb live right now but im going to buy a delta 44 very very soon.

Sorry i know this is off topic, but i am not very good at using logic audio, and i just got back from travelling for 5 weeks so im getting even hazier. I thought this might be something big and important im not doing.

thanks
Click to expand...
I think if your card has only one internal (digital to digital) buss it wouldn't make much of a difference to the sound but it may offer additional routing flexibility. I don't remeber how to assign tracks to busses in Logic, I haven't used Logic in a couple years. I'll load it up later today and get back to you.

In the meantime look around at some prosumer cards...you have the equivalent of leather hand rubbed upholstry in a 88 Nissan stanza with the SB/Logic combo.
 
haha, thats a good analogy, i know exactly what your saying. Im planning on buying at least a delta 44/66 in the next couple weeks to tide me over for a while. When i outgrow it i will probably get a delta 1010 or maybe an rme or motu product. Right now i only need 4inputs anyways.

Another question that comes up with my switching soundcards halfway through a project is that all my stuff right now is in 16 bit. Can i somehow add 24 bit recordings to those? Or would it be best to record all 16 to the unfinished songs, and then start new songs from scratch in 24 bit? I guess if i changed a project in logic from 16 to 24 bit it wouldn't change the 16 bit sounds, but it would allow me to add 24 bit tracks?
 
oooo

I would advise strongly against mixing 16 and 24 bit in sessions. Even if the software can pull it off (which I doubt) I would be very worried about audio playing at different speeds. I always record in 16 bit because for the kind of music I play (weird electro rock) the headroom is not a critical issue, things sound plenty clean for me and I'd rather have the space in HD and extra processor power.

I couldn't find my old copy of Logic. Do you record alot of MIDI?
I ask because there are alot simpler programs for audio only. Vegas or Cool Edit are a million times easier by comparison, though they don't do MIDI.
 
Good to see so many thoughts here, thanks all..

Well I've been doing some more tweaking and the Delta is now working ok even at 24/96 although as per some advice I'm sticking to 16/44.1

I think because I'm recording directly from a Korg Triton, the difference between the cards is maybe a little harder to hear, maybe because the audio source is already quite 'clean'?

Anyway, the one BIG difference I notice is the total lack of hiss or noise from the Delta. Listening back to all my SBLive recordings, they've all got shocking hiss (which of course I notice before but didn't notice is this much!)

The new recordings I've done from the Delta sound a tad cleaner too... I'll keep on doing A/B's with both cards. I'm happier with the Delta now I've got it working hehe... perhaps I should posts up a song recorded with the two different cards to see if everyone can notice a difference or if I've just gone deaf from too much clubbing hehehehe.
 
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