18 Jun
2014
18 Jun
'14
6:30 a.m.
On Tue, 17 Jun 2014, Ivan K wrote:
My current audio card is a an M-Audio 2496, which has
RCA and S/PDIF inputs.
Due to the phasing out of PCI slots, it seems
that USB interfaces are what most people are choosing
to purchase these days.
However, I was thinking about getting a microphone pre-amp
with an s/pdif output. My thinking is:
That is what I do. I have an ART USBDualTube Pre which also has s/pdif
out. The only thing I don't like about the unit is that there is no
external sync on it.
(1) One will always be able to buy PCIe cards in the
future with S/PDIF
I am not seeing this... in my price range :)
However, it seems that the options for such a pre-amp
are limited. I found the following items:
(1) ART DPS-II Digital/Tube $265
The price does not seem unreasonable for a quality pre-amp.
This thing does have a lot of knobs though, and therefore
probably has more functionality than I know what to do with.
I have been happy with my unit which is simpler but that one has clock in.
I have heard that inout impedance is good for ribon mics too. I can't
speak of the quality as I have not used one. There are really not so many
knobs as you suppose:
- input imedance
- tube stage gain
- output level
- Phantom power
- phase (not needed for mostly mono recording, but if you ever do
vocals and guitar together...)
- V3 is a lot about how distorted the signal gets ;) It allows
The tube to act as a limiter. They call it valve voicing.
It is one of those set it to where it "sounds nice"
things.
(2) Samson C-Valve Tube Microphone Preamp $99
This item is discontinued but still available on amazon.
This item did not review well on this list, but ...
it is inexpensive.
Don't know.
So what do people think of this plan? Or do people
recommend
that I just go ahead and get a USB interface?
USB support is up and down (I see a lot of alsa bug reports) minimum
latency will be a bit higher than with a pci card. I would tend to choose
firewire over USB, though the cost is a little higher. They seem to be
more solid/stable.
As I have done the same thing (I made sure my new MB had PCI slots), I am
probably biased :)
USB interupts and internal hubs make finding the right port to use a
little more difficult, but I was able to get mine running with jack at
64/2 in a stable fashion... The ICE1712 PCI will do jack at 16/2 with no
xruns wich is nice for using it for live effects/midi but probably not
really needed for recording.
--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net