[LAU] Christmas present for self.

[Len Ovens]

On Wed, 13 Dec 2017, Will Godfrey wrote:

> I'm thinking of getting a new 'pooter for music, and also thinking of making
> it one of the new Ryzen ones. I don't think there is much point in going for
> more than quad core. The 1500X looks like a good bet 3.5 to 3.7G, and not
> overly expensive.

My choice is i5 with 4 cores no hyperthread... no video problems... but 
then I don't do video editing or games. Video viewing has been just fine.

> On (say) an asus motherboard with on-board radeon graphics. I'm not really

I went with asus as well. There were about 20 MB that would fit the CPU 
choice. I wanted maximum pci slots (ice1712 and AudipPCI card for MIDI) 
and was able to find a few with 3 pci slots. I chose midrange, high enough 
to take extra memory and have fast sata, but leave out as many bells and 
whistles as I could because those just clog up ones irqs. This one was 
able to do either old or new style bios and allows turning boost and/or 
onboard audio off.

> The one think I've no idea about is the sound card. I've got a positively
> ancient 2496 that survived 3 PCs so far, but I think it's time for an upgrade.
> Anyone any ideas about a well supported PCI-e one· It would be nice to have
> balanced IO for a start!

As an almost direct replacement for the 2496 my first thought was the 
Juli@ XTe which has balanced io. 
http://www.esi-audio.com/products/juliaxte/
However, it is no longer made, ESI now sells the MAYA44 eX. This does not 
have balanced io, but rather 1/4in stereo. Also, Juli@ says there are 
ALSA drivers, but the maya does not.

>From there you go to RME, AudioScience, Lynx and digigram. So far as I 
know, AudioScience has full Linux compatability (including programmers 
API), Digigram has ALSA drivers for some of their devices but not all, 
Lynx might be none and RME Linux support seems to have gone downhill. 
However, I would suggest asking on the rivendell list/forum/whatever for 
more info. (They suggest AudioScience right off the top)

Personally, I think when I replace my D66 (probably when I can't get a MB 
with PCI) I have been thinking of the AudioScience PCIe cards as one of 
the possibilities. (in the USB world... probably MOTU AVB with the thought 
of figuring out AVB on Linux)

Personally, I have not needed more than the 6 inputs I have... in fact I 
don't think I have even used more than 2 and most often use 1. So having 
room for a drumset and needing more inputs may be another reason to 
upgrade.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net