[LAU] HW upgrade - new computer

[Len Ovens]

On Mon, 28 Apr 2014, Ivan K wrote:

> Isn't M-Audio going to have to eventually make versions of
> their sound cards for PCI-e ?  What are they waiting for?

There are very few cards for pcie. M-audio appears to have decided USB/FW 
is the safe way to go. Their line of PCI cards seems to depend on what is 
left in stock, there have been no delta 1010s or delta 44s for a few years 
now. The are still 1010LTs and D66s, but I think once they are gone they 
will make no more "internal" cards. The reality is that even with an 
internal card, a BOB or cable is needed. With USB or FW the BOB becomes 
the whole IF and there is less digital noise to deal with.

My opinion is that the "cheap" option will be USB... with (possible) 
problems :P  and then FW which means adding a FW card anyway, but better 
stability and expansion. PCIe cards will be the high end costing more than 
the rest of the machine for most of us. (1K plus for 8 i/o at line level 
with no mic pre)

Linux support for new HW seems to be on the wane too. Used to be all audio 
was addon cards... and the internal audio when it did show up (AC97) was 
poor quality. So there were a lot of "ordinary" users who still added 
cards. The audio quality of the HDA chip set has got to the point most 
people can't tell anything better, and those who can have HDMI out in 
digital format anyway. so there is now a lot less push to support 
everything out there. The audio crowd is a pretty small segment of the 
Linux user crowd anymore. On the up side, there are some more IF makers 
who are putting out linux drivers.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net