On 14/01/15 at 05:32pm, Len Ovens wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Jan 2015, Raffaele Morelli wrote:
>
> >in a recent thread (*) I've finally discovered that my beloved Terratec DMX 6Fire is an old school audio
> >interface so I wonder if switching to a more recent one would result in performance gain
> >or not in the same situation.
>
> I would suggest that if your current card has a bit depth/sample rate that
> works for you and is a PCI card.... it probably performs better than a new
> USB Audio IF. Really the only reason to change your audio card is if you
> need more i/o or bit depth. There is really very little new in audio IF
> besides the port type (the method of connecting to the computer) and so long
> as you have a computer with the port you need, just about anything is better
> than USB. I say USB because that is what all the "cheap" (affordable) audio
> interfaces are these days. The firewire boxes are mostly based on old
> chipsets, so new gets you new caps/diodes/etc. but not anything new.
>
> So, if your box is showing it's age because the caps are baked or whatever,
> then it may be time to buy or repair. Although it is more costly, I prefer
> separate mic preamps with line inputs. It means I can match pre to mic. I
> think that the mic pre that comes with most audio boxes is better than it
> once was, but a cheap pre is a cheap pre and for $500 with 8 pre and ADC/DAC
> they are cheap.
>
> On the other hand, if you want to upgrade, don't ask us :) I think best
> system use is still PCI or PCIe, firewire is still next with USB last place.
> (Intel HDA does not get honourable mention... they are ok for playback, but
> not recording)
>
> Aside from bitdepth, my old 16 bit ensoniq seems to have fewer problems than
> the USB boxes I have tried. My semipro interface is ice1712 based. When I
> bought a new mother board, I got one with 3 PCI slots so I could keep using
> it and have a choice of IRQs.
Old school was referred to the dmix stuff, so the double quotes in "aged".
My question explained was: did I miss something in audio hw interfaces which is worth an
hw upgrade?
Just for the record, I was planning to buy an EWS 88MT, my first audio card beck in 2005
when ardour was 0.97, kernel 2.4 and debian sarge...
--
«My mama said
to get things done
You'd better not mess
with Major Tom»
D.Bowie
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