[linux-audio-user] Demudi looking good, soundcard advice?

[Emiliano Grilli]

giovedì, 14 ottobre 2004 alle 12:47:25, Alejandro Lopez ha scritto:
 
> The only other thing is I may need to buy a decent soundcard for this 
> PC. It should have a GM synth (nothing special since I guess I'll be 
> using soft synths anyway but I don't want to run a synth just to write 
> a couple of arrangements), one stereo output and one stereo input both 
> with good overall audio quality. Seemingly, the current trend is 
> towards either USB 2.0, firewire or PCI. A colleague has just told me 
> that USB 2.0 is supported by the Linux kernel starting from the latest 
> version (2.6 I think?) only. Since music distributions are based on 
> other distributions, chances are that they now run the 2.4 kernel or 
> maybe older. Does that make sense or am I talking complete b*ll*cks? 
> Also, this friend has heard about drops happening with audio over USB, 
> but apparently this was on a Mac and the USB device was a hard disk 
> rather than a soundcard. Still, he seems to think that USB 2.0 is not 
> as good option as firewire for audio. (Which reminds me of SCSI vs IDE 
> drives for audio a few years back, yes SCSI was the serious option for 
> a couple of years but it was an 80% more expensive as well, and shortly 
> afterwards IDE started to go "fast enough" and cheaper.) Is firewire 
> better? Is it more expensive? Also, how does it compare to PCI? Lastly, 
> if any of you has bought a soundcard (recently so the card is still in 
> production) which is reasonably similar to what I need (wouldn't mind 
> if it's slightly better, say 4 mono inputs and 4 mono outputs or 
> something) and has succeed with having it running under a Linux based 
> music studio, I'd be grateful if you drop a line.

As far as I know firewire based audio cards still aren't supported by ALSA,
and USB devices aren't that good, especially with jack (a sound server
which you probably *want* to run ;)

Also onboard synths are difficult to find nowadays on pro or semi-pro
hardware, for this is better to stick to an hw external expander or a
soft-synth like qsynth or timidity.

Among PCI cards, one of the best value for price is IMHO the m-audio
audiophile 24/96, which in europe you can find at around 100 eur. It is a
pure stereo card based on the well supported envy24 chip, it has s/pdif
I/O, analog I/O and MIDI I/O :

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile2496-main.html

I don't owe one, but I have recommended it to a pair of friends and they
seem to have liked it :)

As for 4 I/O, the only one I know is the m-audio delta 44 (around 155 euro
in europe, but *without* s/pdif and MIDI):

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Delta44-main.html

the delta 66 is the same as the 44 but with s/pdif (~ 190 euro).

Then, the cheapest (of which I'm aware of) 8 I/O interface is the staudio
dsp2000 c-port (around 400 euro in EU):

http://www.staudio.com/products/dsp2000.html


> Many thanks!!

HTH ciao

PS: I've taken current prices from http://www.thomann.de , with italian tax
rates applied.
-- 
Emiliano Grilli
Linux user #209089 
http://www.emillo.net