[Alsa-user] Re: [linux-audio-dev] Soundcard spotting
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From: Kai V. <kai...@wa...> - 2002-10-22 22:23:42
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On Tue, 22 Oct 2002, Peter L Jones wrote: >>> * MidiMan Delta Audiophile 2496 (Envy24) >>> * Creative SB PCI 128 (ES1371) >> I've used both of these extensively with JACK and numerous other ALSA = apps >> and they work really well (full-duplex, low-latency use). Other > Heh. Now, one of these I have in my machine ((PII vintage) Celeron 400= )=20 > already. The other would set me back =A3150. Your comment makes me th= ink=20 > there's little to choose between them. So, simply upgrading my soundca= rd=20 > from a =A315 low end consumer-oriented unit to something costing 10 tim= es the=20 > price looks like getting me nothing. Or am I missing something? :-( Well, yes. ES1371 brings you 2ch in+out with max 48000Hz sampling rate, and 16bit sample resolution. Midiman 2496 on the other hands provides up to 96kHz sampling rate, 24bit sample resolution, 2ch in+out and digital in+out. Check the specs from manufacturer's site. And btw, I confused Audiophile with Delta44 (which I have, has 4ins +=20 4outs, no digital in/out). Both are based on the envy24 chipset, should=20 perform equally well. Please, correct me if I'm wrong. >> - GUS MAX (this very, very old ISA-card can still beat a number of >> today's crappy chipsets... I don't know whether to cry or laugh ;)) > I noticed that the ENS1371 seems to have a better rating on one site I = looked=20 > than to EMU10K, so this doesn't surprise me! Yup, I'll probably never get tired of the following slogan: "sb128=20 (ens1371) is the best creative card as it's the one they didn't make=20 themselves". :) Ok, maybe the current SB cards are better, but I'll never forgive the company the disappointment their AWE64Gold caused me.=20 Such waste of money! ;) >> All in all, most of the PCI-cards supported by ALSA have fairly good >> drivers. > But how do I compare one card with another? What should I be looking f= or? =20 > How can I tell which will reduce the load on my computer and which will= =20 > increase the load? Is there any difference? Well, it depends on what you want to do. How many channels you need in=20 and/or out, do you need high-quality recording, do you need digital=20 ins/out, do you need hardware support for multi-open, etc, etc?=20 I'm not a hardware expert so I can't answer to all these questions, but I= =20 can tell about the criteria I used when I selected my last card. My=20 primary use is multitrack recording and mixing. I needed capability to=20 record >2 channels, high-quality a/d and good support for low-latency and= =20 full-duplex. My choice was midiman delta44. It has 4 ins, an external=20 a/d&a/d box (important for high-quality conversion), good ALSA drivers an= d=20 wasn't too expensive (ie. a lot cheaper that the RME cards for instance). So far I've been very satisfied with this purchace.=20 PS Let's cross-post to linux-audio-user. That and alsa-user are probably the best forums for this discussion. --=20 http://www.eca.cx Audio software for Linux! |