[LAU] multichannel interface recommendations?

[Len Ovens]

On Wed, 1 Apr 2015, Bearcat M. Şándor wrote:

> Myself, i've been looking at 
> thisone: http://www.antelopeaudio.com/en/products/
Orion32-Multi-Channel-AD-DA-converter  
> They tell me that it works under Linux via usb.

A bit out of the OP price range :)  Just under $3K. The specs do not say 
much about the Audio levels it works with. I would have to assume that 
they are all Line level (+4?) so on top of the $3k there is the cost of 
Mic pre. at another $1k for cheap, cheap ones. I would think may as well 
get a cheaper AI to begin with.

At this price range I think I would start to look at the Audio Science 
8i/o PCIe cards. 4 of them would be similar price for the same i/o and 
they do support Linux including drivers for internal routing etc. For that 
matter, AoIP starts to look attractive by that price range too.

The truth is, I would only choose USB last. The Linux support has gotten a 
lot better, but HW support has gone up and down on the MB. To use USB 
means getting a USB card to make sure of a dedicated, good HW, USB plug. I 
have seen at least once where the next kernel made the USB AI stop working 
right. The early USB audio days were very shaky, things have gotten a lot 
better, but I am still shy of it. My old PCI card has just always worked 
from day one and never stopped. Only a little tuning was needed to get 
sub-ms latency with no xruns.

The laptop looks good for mobile kinds of things, but One has too little 
control of what goes in them. I like to build my boxes  :)

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net