Shopping for sound card - the A2496?

  • Thread starter Thread starter RWhite
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RWhite

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I’d like some feedback from members about a sound card for my situation.

I have two DAWs. The “main” one is in my basement studio, using a Gadget Labs Wave824 8 in / 8 out card, Cakewalk 9 & Windows 98, and all my studio equipment. I do all my tracking here for the most part. The second is in my upstairs computer room, connected by a LAN. It currently has just a SoundBlaster Live card. This is where I typically do things like converting my LPs and cassettes to CD, and play games.

One problem is that this time of year my basement is a bit chilly. So frequently I take my (almost) finished projects, or mixed down wave files, and move them upstairs to finish them. While the SoundBlaster card will play back my 24 bit files, it is actually hacking them down to 16 bit as it plays. More importantly it completely chokes on any sort of Cakewalk project with plug-ins.

So what I’m looking for a sound card with enough power to play back Cakewalk projects (which may be multiple tracks but are routed to just 2 playback channels) and handle some-plug ins, plus have good A/D converts to handle mundane stuff like moving a cassette to CD. I will not be doing any multi-track recording on the unit. It would be a big plus if it were to run under Windows XP, since I would like to switch this computer from 98 to XP.

After much listening on this board and searching the web, it would seem that the Midiman Audiophile 2496 card would be my preferred choice. So what I’m asking is:

Does anyone have a better idea for a card in my situation?
Can someone verify that the Audiophile works OK under Windows XP?
If I install the Audiophile, can I / should I keep the SoundBlaster Live as well for playing games?
 
Does anyone have a better idea for a card in my situation?
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Well, perhaps not better, but cheaper. Check out the Creative Labs Audigy. It can play back at 24-bit and will be an even better gaming card, of course. I doubt it would match the fidelity of the Audiophile, though. They can be had for $50 something in the OEM version.

Can someone verify that the Audiophile works OK under Windows XP?
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*shrug*

If I install the Audiophile, can I / should I keep the SoundBlaster Live as well for playing games?
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Yes, you can, and you'll have to decide if you should. I believe the Audiophile has basic DirectX drivers, but I know it lacks the 3D audio features of the consumer-level cards like the Live, and I'd want to check CPU utilization as well.


EDIT: I just remembered that the Audigy suffers the same 48KHz problem as the Live - it resamples everything it records or plays back to 48KHz on the fly nomatter what sample rate your source material is or what settings you use. If you want to record at 48KHz on your other DAW, this wouldn't be a problem, otherwise it would cause a reduction in accuracy/quality, probably slight, but something to consider since this system will be used for mixing/mastering.
 
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I have a Delta, which is very similar to the Audiophile, and it works very well in conjunction with my SB Live.
 
the Audigy wont record 24 bit files.....

The Audiophile 2496 is the dude you want!!!
 
My impression was that he didn't need to record on this system...but yes, the Audiophile would be better in all respects but gaming.
 
To clarify, I would be doing some recording but probably only 2 track 16 bit, i.e. continuing to slowly transfer my mountain of albums and cassettes to CDR. This works OK now with my Sound Blaster but better converters would be nice.

I looked at the Audigy, my concern is that (like my current Live card) if I tried playing back a Cakewalk project with plug-ins it just would'nt have enough power and would choke. With my Gadget Labs card the most tracks I have recorded in a project is 20, and while I may record up to 8 at once I always route all playback through two channels only. So there could be 20 wave files in a project being pulled off the hard drive but all pushed into 2 tracks. So my new card would have to be able to handle that.

AlChuck, which Delta card do you have?
 
RWhite said:
To clarify, I would be doing some recording but probably only 2 track 16 bit, i.e. continuing to slowly transfer my mountain of albums and cassettes to CDR. This works OK now with my Sound Blaster but better converters would be nice.

I looked at the Audigy, my concern is that (like my current Live card) if I tried playing back a Cakewalk project with plug-ins it just would'nt have enough power and would choke. With my Gadget Labs card the most tracks I have recorded in a project is 20, and while I may record up to 8 at once I always route all playback through two channels only. So there could be 20 wave files in a project being pulled off the hard drive but all pushed into 2 tracks. So my new card would have to be able to handle that.

AlChuck, which Delta card do you have?
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I have to profess my ignorance, but it seems to me that if the rest of your system could handle it, then the Audigy wouldn't keep you from playing 20 .wav's at once. I know the card can handle 32 audio streams in hardware and this is regularly tested in most reviews using ZD Audio Winbench. I guess if it didn't work on your Live, then that would be reason enough to doubt...did it choke because of latency or would it actualy not play back every track? Also, have you tried the hacked APSLive drivers?

In any case, the Audiophile is still the best bet for recording/mixing/mastering. Personally, I'd be tempted to try out the Audigy considering its so much cheaper...
 
I have the Audiophile 2496 and I am running it with Windows XP. I am happy to say I have had absolutely NO problems. And, to top it off, I also have my SB Live! card in the same computer at the same time, and have no conflicts! Works great. Hope that helps!

leahkim
 
Thanks for the answers!

Dolemite, I used to record tracks without plug-ins of any sort. Then I started adding in plug-ins (I had a posting looking for the best compressor plug-in that kicked arround on "The Rack" for quite awhile). I had always assumed that the ability to play back audio with plug-ins had mainly to do with the CPU. I found that not to be true - My Gadget Labs system (a PIII-550) would handle multiple plug-ins fine. But my upstairs Sound Blaster Live system (the one I'm looking to upgrade) would just immediately choke (instant dropout) even though it was faster (a PIII-933). Apparently the processing of the Live card itself was just too weak. I'm worried the Audigy may also fall into this catagory. If I were only doing 2 track 16 bit I'm sure the Audigy would be fine. The 2496 seems to be a bit more heavy duty, but I guess I will find out soon.
 
Interesting...though I don't think you could attribute it to the power of the card itself. Creative Labs likes to point out that the DSP chip on the Live could do something like 1000 MIPS (million instructions per second). I'd have to guess that its some sort of driver/software issue. CL is earning a bad reputation for drivers/support lately, so you'd have reason to worry about the Audigy apart from your experience with the Live. Well, you should definitely be happy with the Audiophile!
 
Um, RWhite, all effect processing and mixing is done prior to the soundcard. Some soundcards do have built in effects, or a processor that can be used by special effects built for the specific hardware (i'm thinking like Protools, etc), but I'm pretty sure that's not what you're talking about.

It is possible for a fast machine to have problems where a slow machine doesn't. This is why configuration and hardware choices are so important.

Just don't get caught up thinking that the soundcard somehow helps with effects applied in your audio software, because it doesn't. The audio card receives a stream of bits for every output channel in use, and that's it. How effectively it receives that stream will determine latency and will also play a part in the maximum system load before you start having dropouts. While it may *appear* as though the card itself is doing some kind of special processing, it is not.

You do have a point though. A good soundcard with good drivers (most important) in a system that is well designed will function properly throughout a large portion of the system load range. For instance, on a machine with a garbage motherboard, you might start seeing dropouts on a medium load. A better system might be able to use considerably more of the machine's potential (for simplicity's sake: CPU power). It's a lot like headroom in a way.

Anyhow, the only reason I'm saying all this is because in a way you're right. The more plugins you use, the higher the system load. The higher the load, the more likely you are to start spotting problems with hardware and drivers, as data will not reach the soundcard in a timely manner. This does not mean, however, that the soundcard itself is always going to be to blame (although we've all had bad soundcard drivers), and it does not imply that the soundcard is processing DX plugins for you, because it's not.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Slack - your answer makes perfect sense, and does fit how I thought things were SUPPOSED to work. So it may well be that I jumped to the wrong conclusion about my Live card.

Interestingly, both of the two systems I use use the same motherboard (ASUS P3V4X) and same OS (Win98SE) and software (Cakewalk 9, SoundForge 5). So it was easy for me to conclude that the sound card is the difference. Dolemite may be correct that it is the SB Live drivers that are the issue. I'm pretty sure I have the newest drivers downloaded from Creative's website, so I'm not sure there is anything I can do about that.

Perhaps since the Audigy is so cheap, I might just pick one up and try it out - I can always use it someplace as a game card if nothing else.
 
Well, now that I've looked at the Echo Mia card, it looks like it might be an even better choice that the A2496. I like the virtual tracks idea, I can send Cakewalk outputs to the virtually outputs and get real metering. Anyone out there used both of these cards, or feel strongly about one vs. the other?
 
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