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Re: [ARSCLIST] Sound card recommendations
You know, that recommendation is kind of strange. All or most of the first-gen professional
converters were in-board cards, and they worked fine. Also, think of all the albums mastered on Macs
with in-board cards and Sonic Solutions, although many places also used external converters and just
brought digital into the box. Anyway, over time, there was a definite junk proliferation of noisy
audio cards, and I have yet to find a really good-sounding on-the-motherboard system -- in laptops
or desktops (where this is now the common thing since Intel started doing on-MB audio a couple of
years ago). So maybe that's why the standards changed. But here's the bottom line on the DAL card,
and I'm sure all or most of the other true pro-grade cards ("pro-grade" = balanced +4dBu line in and
out and at least SPDIF digital in and out) have noise floors below -90dB and do not pick up any
audible hash or hum from the PC. The problems I've encountered with unblanced audio from PC's is
that shield-to-case is not necessarily a good ground and hum can occur. Doesn't always but can.
If I were buying today, I might consider one of the more fancy outboard firewire boxes, but I have
never had a need to upgrade from the DAL.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard L. Hess" <ArcLists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:05 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Sound card recommendations
At 01:15 PM 1/11/2006, Casey, Michael T wrote:
Jeppe,
For preservation work, IASA TC-04 recommends a stand alone A/D CONVERTER for a variety of reasons
and provides technical specifications. This is to be used with a sound card that can pass a
digital stream without alteration. They do not recommend using a card to handle the A/D
conversion.
Hi, Mike,
I understand what IASA says, but perhaps it's time to re-think that standard.
Two of the finest analog-digital options for the PC are the Lynx Two and the oft-recommended
Carddeluxe from DAL.
Granted these are exceptions to the rule concerning not putting the converters in the PC box, but
they do work very well according to my research.
With that said, I use two RME Multifaces which are outboardes box and I believe it meets IASA
standards, though I haven't looked recently. Each one uses a dedicated host PCI card and the
converters are in an outboard box.
I have also just acquired a MOTU 828 MK II which is an outboard converter box with mixing and
routing capabilities and it has 10 analog ins and connects via 1394/Firewire to the host. I feel
this is the direction that things are headed and it might be wise to select this topology. This
was purchased for use with my laptop for multi-track field recording -- the advantage here is that
it adds two mic preamps for the stereo pair while allowing me to use the 8 direct mic outs of my
Mackie 1604-VLZ mixer (or four directs and four submasters ... or...anyway it keeps the overall
pair out of the sound reinforcement mixer). I now use the MOTU in the studio with the AUX computer
as it allows me to ingest long digital programs while I'm using the main audio computer and two
RME Multifaces to ingest analog programs.
Cheers,
RIchard
Richard L. Hess richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Aurora, Ontario, Canada http://www.richardhess.com/
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm