Help choosing an Audio Interface...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Capn Dino
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Capn Dino

New member
G'day folks! Just joined this fine community in the hope some of you might be able to throw some suggestions my way in regards to a new AI. Honestly all the choices out there are making my head spin. Have been through the tweakheadz article a few times without coming to a conclusion, and most other articles I can find are at least 3-4 years old.

What I need it for: Home voice recording - it's a small home built voice studio, desktop PC, so a USB interface being the ideal. (I think the new m/b I'm getting is lacking a firewire port). So low signal noise is my goal, it's going to replace my old PCI Xonar card.

Inputs: 1 studio mic currently running from a small behringer desk, 1 headset mic - and down the track I'd like to be able to plug in a digital piano.
Outputs: 1x set of headphones, 1x studio speakers - and a digital output to go to the home theater system. (optical ideal)

Budget: Pref. under USD$300, but taking all suggestions!

If anyone can help and knows of something that would fit this bill, I'd be SUPER grateful!

Cheers!

Capn D.
 
E-MU Systems - 0404 USB 2.0. I love it, and definately great for your budget. I can't post the website but google it.
 
Thank you very much for those suggestions, folks!

Both the M-Audio and the E-MU look like they'd fit the bill perfectly (unfortunately the lack of a digital IO on the presonus prevents that one). The few extra outputs on the m-audio might come in handy, but the E-MU has optical outs, not just the coax, which might be nice.

Tetra, I also can't seem to find whether the m-audio fast track Pro is USB 2.0, or still using 1.1? It just says "USB" everywhere, even in the specs. Would you know off hand?

It seems like I could just about do away with my mixing desk?? At the moment I've got the mixer in the booth with me and I just run TRS cables to plug into my PCI sound card, but it looks as though if the quality is decent, I could just plug the mic straight into the AI with the XLR cable and forget about my desk. I rarely change anything on it anyway...

(Also just noticed on the M-Audio the SNR is only 101dB compared to the E-MU's 113 - that's a bit of a tick for the E-MU)

Anyone with any other boxes they love? Cheers!

D.
 
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