Urgent advice needed!

[oz_fenda]

G'day,
My name's matt i've been told the next upgrade for my makeshift studio is a soundcard (I currently am using the one that came with my ASUS motherboard)....
I currently have a Behringer 1202FX mixer, which I put through the line in of my stock standard card....I have a 57 and a Samson C01 mic....
Anyways to get to the point,
I'm a typical poor student and the soundcards I can find in shops that are around my price range are all either firewire or usb....(firewire is no good to me as I don't have firewire support, and all the usb cards/interfaces i've seen are no good)...So anyways on Ebay there is a PCI card listed with the following specs:

* 64 audio channel playback with independent sample rates
* 24-bit Analog-to-Digital conversion of analog inputs at 96kHz sample rate
* 24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion of digital sources at 96kHz to analog 5.1 speaker output
* 16-bit and 24-bit recording with sampling rates of 8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48 and 96kHz
* SPDIF output up to 24-bit resolution at selectable sampling rate of 44.1, 48 and 96kHz

This is the link: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/CREATIVE-AUD...90QQihZ012QQcategoryZ3701QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

There is only a couple of hours to go and the current bid is at $47AU which seems to me like an absolute bargain! I know it won't be the best quality card but surely would be a worthy upgrade from my crappy one that came with the motherboard? Someone mentioned the A/D & D/A converters will boost the quality as I'll still be inputing through my mixer?

Thankyou all so much in advance, muchly appreciated x1000000!!!!!
cheers,

Matt

 

[danny.guitar]

It would be better than a stock/onboard soundcard. My friend has the audigy and it's not a bad card.

If you could stretch your budget another $50 I would recommend the M-Audiophile 2496, or something similar. But if you can't, and this is the best deal you can find, then go for it.

I noticed a huge difference between my old RealTek onboard soundcard and just a SoundBlaster Live 24-bit.

And just a little difference between the SoundBlaster and the 2496 as far as sound quality goes.

But when it comes to options and performance for recording, the 2496 beats the hell out of the SoundBlaster.

 

[oz_fenda]

cool man i'll take a look at the 2496 aswell...
thanks heaps mate cheers!
matt

 

[Mindset]

Eh... don't go with Creative man. It's just bunch of lies.

* 64 audio channel playback with independent sample rates
* 24-bit Analog-to-Digital conversion of analog inputs at 96kHz sample rate
* 24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion of digital sources at 96kHz to analog 5.1 speaker output
* 16-bit and 24-bit recording with sampling rates of 8, 11.025, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48 and 96kHz
* SPDIF output up to 24-bit resolution at selectable sampling rate of 44.1, 48 and 96kHz

It's not really 24 bit recording, or 96khz recording either. Those are done by upsampling and converting 16 bit to 24 bit. So basically mean, you record a track at 24 bit, it's really being recorded at 16 bit, and then converted to 24 bit. I know this guy who is one of the designer workers for creative's sound design stuff, and he told me that it's true, but the X-fi newer cards actually do 24 bit now... but however, these items are optimized for games & music, not for recording & production.

 

[fraserhutch]

You may want to consider GETTING firewire support - those cards are dirt cheap nowadays.

 

[Minion]

I would suggest that you save up more money and get a real recording sound card....If you buy that card you will just end up haveing to buy again down the road....

For $100 you can get a half decent card so I would do that.....

OR ...Simply blow the $10 and get a Firewire card for your PC as Firewire interfaces are really the way to go and you can get a Firewire PCI Card for as little as $2 on e-bay.....


Cheers