[linux-audio-user] How broken are epia boards for use with ardour? (sorry if you've seen this message many times)

[Steve Harris]

On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 06:51:47 +0100, geekery at jamesfenn.co.uk wrote:
> Hello there,
>  I am thinking about putting together a silent (or very near) machine for recording classical guitar. I have this set up in mind and would like to use ardour (so that I can do drop-ins etc) even though there is a don't use epia warning on the ardour homepage:
> 
> epia m10k with a replacement fan (17db)

There are fanless versions of this processor, there slightly slower, and
I've not used them so I'm not confident about the performance though. The
stock M10000 fan is pretty quiet.

> silverstone LG06 (silent PSU - fanless)

Is that an external brick pwersupply? Those work well with DC-DC
converters to provide the ATX powerlines.

> samsung spinpoint (apparently the quietest Hard Drive about)

You can get sleeves that block the noise if you can still hear is seek:
http://www.quietpc.com/uk/harddrive.php

> The main question is: I would only at maximum be multitracking 2 parts. Is the epia so bad that it wouldn't be able to cope with that? (I have no idea what the link about the epia on the ardour homepage is talking about so please have mercy in your replies.)

There really not that slow, you should be fine. I've used them at work and
I would guess that thier equivalent to a PIII 700, at least. Enough to run
ardour. For reference I used to run (and older version of) ardour on a
PIII 500. It limits the number of plugins oyu can run, but just recording
doesnt use that much CPU.

I've had good service from ultim8pc (http://www.ultim8pc.co.uk/) and quietpc 
(http://www.quietpc.com/uk/) FWIW.

- Steve