[linux-audio-user] Just how bad is USB audio?

[iriXx]

just my 2 euros....

under GNU/Linux, you'll find you get more mileage out of usb audio than 
you do under windows....

i'm running on a much lower spec system than yours - i use an m-audio 
quattro usb module (4 in 4 out + midi) on a thinkpad 600e laptop, 
pentium II 366Mhz... and 224Mb Ram... pretty modest - and it does just 
fine :) if i had a higher spec system like yours doubtless i'd get a lot 
better performace... but in general i'm very pleased with the use i get 
out of the quattro for pro-audio composition and performance.

hth

m~

Dan Armak wrote:
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> Hello,
> 
> I'm considering buying a USB sound card for my laptop. (I have no desktop box 
> worth talking about atm.) Everyone says a USB card is a Bad Thing, but I've 
> found few numerical measures, and I don't have much of a choice anyway 
> (unless someone releases a firewire card, or a pcmcica one under $1000)... If 
> someone can point me to some more concrete data, it would help me make my 
> choice. (Which is basically to buy or to suffer crappy sound, as I see no 
> real alternative...)
> 
> CPU utilization is the main problem. I probably wouldn't count as a hardcore 
> gamer, since I have a p3-900 with 256mb ram and it's enough to run all the 
> games I need (mostly ps1 emulations, but some sims/fpss too). So what 
> performance hit should I expect from using a usb audio device? The only 
> review on the net that actually mentioned numbers was one of the Extigy on 
> Tom's H/w Giude, and it said 20% cpu of a p4-2Ghz, but that was using 6 or 8 
> channels with special effects requested by something on the order of UT2003, 
> which is out of my league anyway.
> 
> I don't have or plan to have any other high-bandwith devices on my usb (1.1) 
> bus, just a keyboard/mouse/joystick. Also I only have 2 speakers atm, so I'll 
> only be streaming two channels. Therefore bandwith shouldn't be a problem as 
> I understand it.
> 
> OTOH I'd want to do some none-cpu-intensive work (writing, reading) while 
> listening to mp3s and copmpiling stuff in the backgruond. I would probably 
> accept some slowdown in the compiling, as long as the audio didn't skip and 
> responsiveness wasn't affected (I already use a kernel with all the low 
> latency/preempt/O1 scheduler etc. patches and have a prelinked system because 
> I really hate responsiveness issues)...
> 
> Finally as to the card itself: AFAICS there are the costly ones (Extigy and 
> Audiotrak Maya 5.1 usb), which have lots and lts of features most of which I 
> don't really need, and some cheap ones like the iMic or Xitel Hi-Fi-Link 
> which only have stereo rca input/output. The latter type is much closer to 
> what I'd be using of all those features, but unfortunately I cannot find them 
> in any shops here in Israel, and if I order over the internet I'll have to 
> pay for shipping and won't have warranty coverage. So I'd be willing to pay 
> for the maya card if I cuold be sure I'll be using it well, preferrably also 
> when I build my next desktop system in a year from now.
> 
> Any recommendations, info etc. will be most welcome :-)
> 
> - -- 
> Dan Armak
> Matan, Israel
> Public GPG key: http://www.gentoo.org/~danarmak/danarmak-gpg-public.key
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> 


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iriXx
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