M-Audio 2496 to 192, how much of an upgrade would this be?

M

Mr songwriter

New member
I can get the 2496 for about £50 and the 192 for about £95. I've been using a 2496 in another PC for about a year now and I'm reasonably happy with it, now I need a soundcard for another PC and I'm wondering whether the 192 is worth the extra £45. As far as I can see, the main advantages of the 192 are:

192 Khz recording, though I'm not sure how well the PC will handle it (it's a 3 Ghz P4 with 768 MB of RAM) as far as I can remember the only time that I tried to record with my 2496 at 96 Khz it was struggling slightly, so I normally just run it at 44 Khz.

Better dynamic range, though again this will obviously be lost when I mixed tracks down to put on a CD, but I suppose it'll be nice to listen to it on the PC.

The 192 has a pair of balanced TRS inputs (the 2496 only has the normal TS ones) and as I'm also buying an M-Audio DMP3 and the manual for the DMP3 says 'when possible, always use the balanced outputs as this will give you a quieter and hotter signal', so they might come in handy.

The 192 is bundled with 'Ableton live lite'

I tried Googling to see if the cards use a different chipsets or converters, but to no avail.

Any opinions, anyone?
 
Push to find an answer on the converters that each unit uses. The 192k sample rate is not going to do you any good, so no sense in paying for it. Balanced I/O is better, but if you had no problem before, then there's nothing to fix. So the question is whether the conversion at the sample rate you really use is better or not. My educated guess is that it won't be a noticable difference.
 
You don't particularly need to know the chip because M-Audio has already told you the difference in performance: 113dB vs 104dB at 48kHz sample rate, .0006% vs .002% THD. You won't learn much different from the chip datasheets.

Obviously the 192 is a newer product with a newer generation chip. Given the relatively small price difference, I'd get the 192. Heck, I'd get it just for the balanced output.
 
Robert D said:
My educated guess is that it won't be a noticable difference.
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Mine too.

Most people (and most of them more knowledgable than me) say track at the target rate (ie, 44.1 for CD, 48 for video). Dan lavry wrote a white paper on sampling rate theory and concluded that too high a rate could even be destructive to the audio. "The higher the numbers, the better it sounds" is just marketing crap.

A balanced chain is really no big deal unless you have long cable runs, not usually an issue in a small home or project studio. You will lose a few dB (6 I think) but honestly it won't bother you unless you're trying to record the sound of a mouse scratching it's balls from the other end of a very long tunnel.

I used to use a DMP-3 with an M Audio 1010LT (unbalanced inputs) and never wanted for more gain. In fact even with the balanced out/to unbalanced in thing I found the DMP-3 to be a pretty hot pre.

As I've said before, imo the 2496 and DMP-3 combo is a very respectable 2 channel chain for very little money.
 
I'd listen to MSHilarious as he's real smart, but I also believe I read in Sound on Sound (can't get the review on-line right now) tha the 192 uses better converters than the 96. I also believe that they wrote that the 96 uses the same converters as the Echo Mia.
This place sells M-audio stuff cheaper than most:
www.digitraxx.com

Edit: FWIW, I believe the reviewer said that they heard a noticeable different between the converters of the 96 and the 192, but that the 192 still did not sound as good as the E-Mu 1212m. Then again SonS is a trade magazine (i.e. catalog)
 
I'm in the UK, so I'll probably just get it out of a shop, but thanks for the link anyway, the only reason I'm interested in maybe getting something with a better spec is that a lot of the recordings I'm making with my 2496 are coming out very quiet and I figure that any improvement in gain etc will help. I think I'm probably going to get it anyway for the balanced inputs. Robert D, did you mean that the songs on your MySpace were recorded with a 192? either way they're v good btw.
 
You mentioned that you are getting a preamp-- if you haven't been using one before that may make a more significant difference in gain. I don't think that an increase in sample rate will do that. A bit resolution increase (16 to 24) should increase the dynamic range.
disclaimer: I may be talking out of my arse with this tech stuff.
 
Mr songwriter said:
I'm in the UK, so I'll probably just get it out of a shop, but thanks for the link anyway, the only reason I'm interested in maybe getting something with a better spec is that a lot of the recordings I'm making with my 2496 are coming out very quiet and I figure that any improvement in gain etc will help.
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Here's the problem with specs: they really don't get directly at the quality of the converter, they just hint at it. Given that few record at 192, so the difference we're really interested in is at 44.1, 48, or 96.

The dynamic range stat is theoretically already far beyond the acoustic noise floor of any room, or certainly any mic, but having said that, converters that spec better in dynamic range and THD usually retain clarity in high frequencies better than converters with poorer specs--even though the specs don't directly address that (THD does, a little). And the difference can be quite audible (check the recent converter comparison thread here).

And there has been lots written here about the usefulness of extra dynamic range as headroom when recording--simply put, you'll be more comfortable setting peaks at -12dBFS when the indicated noise floor is still well below the final CD mixdown's dynamic range.
 
Right, thanks Mr H, I think I understood...errm...most of that :D , I'm going to go for the 192, it's not that much more.
 
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Mr songwriter said:
Right, thanks Ms H, I think I understood...errm...most of that :D , I'm going to go for the 192, it's not that much more.
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Haha-- he called you "Ms. H" :D
 
I'll give you 50p if you can hear any difference in quality bwetween the two (other than the extra few dB going balanced to balanced).

But, yeah, I'll second the 'Mshilarious knows his shit' comment.
 
Mr songwriter said:
Robert D, did you mean that the songs on your MySpace were recorded with a 192? either way they're v good btw.
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That stuff was tracked through a variety of front ends, ranging from ADAT to Delta 66 to MOTU to Lynx LS-22. The Lynx card has really good conversion, but it's a bit more coin than you're looking to spend. Really though, when it comes to converters, the rest of your chain has to be pretty top notch before your prosumer converters begin to be a liability.
Thanks for the compliment, btw.
 
Mr songwriter said:
...the only reason I'm interested in maybe getting something with a better spec is that a lot of the recordings I'm making with my 2496 are coming out very quiet and I figure that any improvement in gain etc will help.
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What do you mean by "very quiet?" If you're comparing your recordings to professionally recorded/mixed/mastered cd's, then I think you're barking up the wrong tree looking to only upgrade to a balanced card. While it's true that the balanced inputs will get you a slightly hotter signal, you still won't get in the realm of commercial cd's. Most modern cd's have been smased into a brickwall limiter to make them louder.
 
As far as I'm concerned, my recordings sound quiet even compared to other home recorded stuff I've heard on the net, so maybe it is something I'm doing. Here's a particularly bad example of what I mean by very quiet:

Very quiet song

I think I used the SPDIF out from my DR-880 into the 2496 with this one, if I try and make this clip any louder it sounds like it's distorting to me.

Here's a clip from one with guitars that sounds a bit louder.

Selection
 
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Mr songwriter said:
Oh, I thought that was what it meant, Mzz as in the title, my apologies.
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No need to apologize, I am purposely ambiguous as I stole my wife's screen name years ago :D

I'll give you 50p if you can hear any difference in quality bwetween the two (other than the extra few dB going balanced to balanced).
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I'll take that bet! I think I can even dig up a UK 50p piece!

Seriously though, there will be a difference; it will be small and you'd have to listen for it on a monitoring system with good response above 16kHz. Either will produce good recordings; the 192 will have a slight edge that along with the other features for £45 extra seems worth it to me.

Not that I've checked the exchange rate since I worked for a multinational . . . lessee, that was 2000 :o

OK, I am willing to bet any of these :D :
 
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The sound of a converter is dependent on a lot more factors than just the chips or the sample rate. It's possible the 192 could sound worse than the 96. The reason being that the 96 is optimized for performance at 96k and the 192 is probably optimized for performance at 192k. Just because it says 192 on the box and is newer doesn't mean it's better. It could be, but it also might not be. Since you don't seem to be planning on recording at 192 anyway, the only reason to get it would be the balanced I/O, if you need that.
 
What does the 1010LT run for over there? I would rather have more inputs then something that only sounds "better" to a dog. Your target sampling rate is probably the rate you should track at, which if this is going to CD that means 44.1KHz. And like Larvy has said/written, there is just no reason for 192. So is a $50 card worse then a $100 card (err pounds), is it noticable? Is it something you will hear right away? Like Chessrock proved in his test of going through 3 steps of conversion and back there wasn't a huge difference between what most would call ok converters and good converters. So little of a difference I can't see how someone could hear the difference between the two cards in question on a single pass through the converters. Get the 1010LT be happy with more inputs, and two mic inputs that can be switched to line if needed. And as far as balanced vs unbalanced, you only MAYBE NEED balanced on long runs from your preamps to your sound card. Of course no one ever mentions how long of a unbalanced run is that would be bad. I run 120 feet of snake/mic cables to my headphone amp unbalanced...yes its a behringer amp, yes its only over headphones, no it isn't a bad signal. You will be fine in your standard setup at home of runs of 20-40ft. Which is what I run, or there abouts. After the signal leaves the pres, I think I have a 15 or is it 20 foot snake to the patchbay, then another snake to the sound card, and I am fine here as is, unbalanced and all. Now if you live in downtown newyork you may NEED balanced all the way, but even then its not an absolute. NEED is a strong word when it comes to music production, WANT might be a better term, but NEED is over used.
 
I had a look at the 1010LT's, but they cost about £160, and according to the spec, the built in mic preamps only work with dynamic mics and don't have phantom power (I'm planning to get a condenser) and in any case I'm about to buy a DMP3, so the preamps are neither here nor there, nor do I need that many in's. Also, as I said earlier, the manual for the DMP3 says that the balanced outputs run quieter and hotter than the unbalanced ones, so surely that's quite a big plus, not to mention the supposedly better dynamic range. I've also had a look at the 192's manual and there is also an option in the control panel for choosing the monitor mixer's source when using S/PDIF that isn't present in the 2496's control panel.
 
If it's simply a case of getting balanced ins I'd go for the Delta 66 over the audiophile 192. 4 balanced ins/outs with spdif and a breakout box for only a few quid more.

http://www.thomann.de/index.html?partner_id=97926&page=gb/m-audio_delta_66.htm

I don't know what 'the numbers' are like compared with the 192 but again I'd be fairly confident that only experienced engineers with decent monitoring set ups could maybe tell the difference (if indeed there is one).

In fact I'd bet 1,300,000 old Turkish Lira with MSHilarious on it. :D
 
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