Sound Card Recommendations

  • Thread starter Thread starter tmhamm
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tmhamm

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I currently have a Creative Labs Live Value! installed on my system. Frequently, I will hear that there are better "more professional" quality sound cards out there, for not much more money. Does any have some decent recommendations I could check in to? I haven't had many trouble with the Live Value!, so I'm wondering what would be so much better?
 
I just spent the last month asking the same question. I ordered a GadetLabs Wave 824. They have some low prices/high recomendations compared to others. http://www.gadgetlabs.com/
What type of stuff do you do with your SBlive?
What's better? I can't get tech. cause that is not me, but... I think that it has to do w/ expandability and limitations. The Live is nice for sound fonts, but I haven't heard of anybody running mixers, ADATS, samplers, etc. through one.
 
From what I've been able to figure out, the money you spend on a high-end sound card is spent on the converter. Most of the better sound cards now are converting A/D at 20-bit. The really good ones are doing like 24 bit. Also with a better sound card, you get more I/O and digital I/O. They usually come with breakout boxes as well which makes it easier to get to your I/O. If you're looking for a medium priced card, check out the lexicon core2 system. It's really nice and it's only $400. The Aardvark 24/96 is a little bit nicer, but costs like two bills more. The ultra nice card right now is the Digi001 by Digidesign. Unfortunately it's only on a Mac version right now and that is backordered. There is a pc version due out sometime for NT, but it's tough to get a straight answer on when it is going to ship.
 
Don't even waste your time considering these other soundcards. Look no further than the LynxOne.

4-channels in and out, 24-bit A/D, fast and stable dual-channel MIDI... Testing shows that it has the best analogue sound quality of any soundcard that you might possibly afford (under $500 retail).

LynxOne's NT4 and Win2K support is supreme -- multiple soundcards in a system, multi-threaded device driver, support for multiple Pentiums under NT/Win2K, etc... It doesn't get any better than this presently!

Info on LynxOne soundcard at: http://www.lynxstudio.com/

Independent audio tests of LynxOne at: http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/LynxONE/index.htm
 
Gosh Gary. Did you buy stock in this company or something..... :)

Actually I bought one about 1 1/2 months ago and have not regretted this choice. This card is very, very, very good sounding. The A/D converters are right in there with the Apogees I have heard while mastering at places that have them.

Have not used the MIDI ports yet, but I am sure that they are in line quality wise with the rest of the card.

I have been recording my mixes using GoldWave as the software. I don't even save the file as 24 bit because I have not found a difference between saving at 24 or 16. 24 gives the .wav window a little more room to boost, but not enough to matter really. But, it is still a much better converter than any DAT player. And it sounds better than XT 20 converters.

The comment about it being 4 channel in and out is a bit misleading. It can be, but you only have 2 A/D and D/A converters. To use all 4 I/0's you would need to connect another device up to the digital I/0's on the card. But, it is cool that all 4 I/O's are available at one time.

I recommend this card if your need is for only 2 converters at once. I recommend two of them if you need 4 converters at once. But you can only run three of these cards together.

Anyway Gary, nice suggestion.... :)

Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio www.echostarstudio.com
 
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