[LAU] Card advice: M-aud. Fasttrack vs. Rol. UA25EX vs. ?

[Q]

Julien Claassen wrote:
> Hello Massy!
>   I have a Delta and I suspect they will use most of their elements in 
> the USB cards as well. I'm not sure about phantom powered input, but the 
> preamps are good, my 16bit/48kHz works perfectly and the converters are 
> good.
>   We compared the preamps with those in a roaldn/Bos BR1180CD, which is 
> a harddisk-recorder. I think they will use different preamps now, but if 
> not: The delta mic-preamps were much better than the boss ones.
>   that's unfortunately all I can say and guess about it. I know, that a 
> friend of mine has a fasttrack and has been running it for quite some 
> time without hitches.
>   Kind regards
>            Julien (the Namite :-) )

I'm by no means an expert on this, but from what I've read you should 
not make any assumptions about USB sound cards based on similar devices, 
possibly based on similar chipsets, that are PCI devices. Whilst 
chipsets may be the same, there can be problems relating to transmission 
of data over USB when it comes to USB2.

I do have an M-Audio FastTrack Pro which I bought for use with a 
netbook, but ultimately I've never actually used it as a USB soundcard 
so can't comment about that. I just use it as a pair of pre-amps into 
the analogue inputs of my M-Audiophile 24/96 for my synths (I use the 
SPDIF inputs/outputs with offboard ADC/DAC for mic input/monitoring).

I think I recall from when I was researching USB soundcards that the 
FastTrack works okay, providing you don't expect high throughput, in 
other words it works fine for USB1 but not USB2: according to the ALSA 
wiki the FastTrack Pro only has a reduced channel count at anything 
greater than 16/48.  But I'm only going by what I recollect reading, not 
by experience.

 From experience, I would agree with Ronald about the FastTrack Pro's 
pre-amps -- they're noisy as hell (but I've never had the other one to 
compare, I'm going against my Focusrite TwinTrack pre-amps). Most of my 
synths are fine running through it as the S/N ratio is pretty good: but 
with my string synth (a late 70s Logan String Melody II which seems to 
have a pretty low output) I have to crank the gain quite a bit and the 
noise is pretty bad.

I seem to recall reading that you have to be careful as there is a US122 
and a US122L and they are VERY different beasts which should not be 
confused.

Hope this helps.

Q

-- 
A musical collaborator: "Lethargy, hm really? Then it will be time for 
me to get over there and just accidental idea the $h!t out of you"