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

Mr songwriter said:
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.
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The balanced Mic inputs on the 1010LT can be switched to Balanced line in.
 
Hi

I had a 2496 and up graded to the 192.

Definitelly, better sound, better converter (even on 44.1)
First song you put to listen on 192 and you will hear details (on "high frequencie" percussion, better bass response, definition....that you don´t had before with 2496.

Well, typical "better converter" things...


Ciro
 
...Just a quick *bump* here to say that I followed the advice of the people that recommended the 192 and it the quality of recordings I'm getting is noticeably better, much clearer with better separation between the instruments, IMO, and it's noticeable on pretty much every instrument, though to be fair to the 2496, I think there might have been a fault with it, because it was crashing quite a lot, though I don't know whether the fault could have been affecting the sound quality.

The only other big difference is that the volume level that the 192 records at is a lot lower than I was getting with the 2496, though that could be because I'm going from unbalanced stereo outs on my mixer to balanced stereo ins on the 192.
 
Kevin DeSchwazi said:
Fancy putting some samples up? I'm really keen to hear this difference.
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OK, this is just a bit of noodling thing I did with my brother about a week after I bought the 192, there's a mic'd electric bass, a VST organ and 2 or 3 mic'd electric guitars. The drums are samples triggered with an electronic drum kit. I'm not sure what to use for a comparison track because I've removed the 2496 from my PC now and I didn't record a take of this track when it was in there, I'll have to have a think about that, though as far as I can remember, apart from normalising the audio for each track and then balancing the levels against each other, I didn't use any post processing, whereas with my 2496, I was endlessly having to faff about with compression and EQ and still wasn't happy with the results.

This is a 25 MB WAV that you can either stream or Right-click and save:

Sample track recorded with 192

And yes, I know there are a few timing problems on that track, not my fault :)
 
Would have been good to hear a comparison but I don't expect you to reinstall your 2496 just to satisfy my curiosity! :D

I'm glad you're happy with the 192 anyway, I'll have a listen to your sample when I get home tonight.
 
SonicAlbert said:
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.
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I WAS waiting for someone to say this. When will all this converter BS end?

192 is a waste from every engineering standpoint you can name. 24 bit from 16 bit IS the big difference. 44,48,96 all sound great depending on how the designer optimized their analog section. Many put all the effort into 44 (for example) and "slapped" in 96 for marketability. Same with the new 192. You have to use the converter at the sample rate you want to hear if it makes a difference *in relation to* the converter you are trying to replace *reguardless* of the sampling rate of the old converter. You *could* upgrade and sound worse.
 
MCI2424 said:
I WAS waiting for someone to say this. When will all this converter BS end?

192 is a waste from every engineering standpoint you can name. 24 bit from 16 bit IS the big difference. 44,48,96 all sound great depending on how the designer optimized their analog section. Many put all the effort into 44 (for example) and "slapped" in 96 for marketability. Same with the new 192. You have to use the converter at the sample rate you want to hear if it makes a difference *in relation to* the converter you are trying to replace *reguardless* of the sampling rate of the old converter. You *could* upgrade and sound worse.
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That may be true, but I only ever ran my 2496 at 44 Khz and so far I have only been running my 192 at 44 Khz too, but as Mr Hilarious said further up the thread:

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).
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...I couldn't give you any hard scientific data to back up what I'm saying, but I've sat and listened *very* closely to hours and hours worth of recordings that I've made with my 2496 , and even though I was reasonably happy with the results, every single recording I've made since I swopped it for the 192 has been audibly clearer with much better definition, detail and separation between the instruments, and that's using exactly the same PC, the same software, the same mic's, mixer, guitars, amps and cables, and the same noobish recording techniques - the only variable that has changed is the soundcard.

Kevin: I have just had a look through the recordings I did with my 2496 and there was a track I'd had about three goes at recording, but all of them came out far too mushy for my liking, so I was going to re-record that track anyway, if I get the time in the next week or so I will try and re-do it with the 192, using the same settings as far as possible, purely in the interests of scientific inquiry.
 
"""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."""

My research is purely reading, not practical, but the above seems to be the case. In fact, you would have to pay several times the price of either one to get 'sound' as good as the 1212M, which is why I'm going to buy one. The 192 is second choice, and I could live with that, too.
 
That's interesting, though it's a bit late to do anything about it, but I've avoided the E-mu cards up til now because I've heard quite a lot of people saying that the drivers aren't as stable as the Audiophile's and also that the DSP mixer thing is much harder to understand than the Audiophile's control panel, which I'm already pretty familiar with.
 
Mr songwriter said:
That may be true, but I only ever ran my 2496 at 44 Khz and so far I have only been running my 192 at 44 Khz too, but as Mr Hilarious said further up the thread:



...I couldn't give you any hard scientific data to back up what I'm saying, but I've sat and listened *very* closely to hours and hours worth of recordings that I've made with my 2496 , and even though I was reasonably happy with the results, every single recording I've made since I swopped it for the 192 has been audibly clearer with much better definition, detail and separation between the instruments, and that's using exactly the same PC, the same software, the same mic's, mixer, guitars, amps and cables, and the same noobish recording techniques - the only variable that has changed is the soundcard.

Kevin: I have just had a look through the recordings I did with my 2496 and there was a track I'd had about three goes at recording, but all of them came out far too mushy for my liking, so I was going to re-record that track anyway, if I get the time in the next week or so I will try and re-do it with the 192, using the same settings as far as possible, purely in the interests of scientific inquiry.
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So, you like your new card. Both at 44K, one sounds better.

Be happy.
 
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