21 Apr
2006
21 Apr
'06
5:12 a.m.
Quoting Rick Wright <riwright(a)vt.edu>du>:
Hi All,
I'm looking for recommendations for a high-quality desktop sound card
that has more than 8 analog inputs and outputs. I plan to use this for
real-time I/O processing of audio signals with JACK, BruteFIR, and other
audio apps. so it has to be well supported in Linux. I need ~10
independent (and externally accessible) analog I/O channels right now,
but would like a solution that gives me room to grow.
I've heard recommendations for Hammerfall products on this list before
as well as syncing multiple ICE1712 cards following instructions here:
http://www.sound-man.co.uk/linuxaudio/ice1712multi.html
If money isn't an issue, I would go for RME products.
The HDSP9652 will give you 3 x ADAT I/O. One adat will give you 8 channels
at 44.1k or 48k or 4 channels at 88.2k or 96k. With that card you would get
a total of 24 or 12 channels of both input and output depending on SR.
For true "room to grow" ge the HDSP MADI card and the ADI-648 for a total of
8 x ADAT I/O. That'll give you 64 or 32 channels of both input and output
depending on SR.
Of course, these options leave you to purchase a AD/DA converter of your
liking. Which gives you more options, but costs a lot of more money.
Wordclocking a bunch of m-audio delta 1010's will be a _lot_ cheaper, but it
has it's downsides: you're stuck with the converters (and the options) in
the 1010's and you're in for a bit of configuring to get the linked 1010's
working.
Also, this path needs more PCI slots. Consider this: if you really need 32
channels of 88.2k or 96k, you will need 4 PCI slots. To get to the 64
offered by the MADI option, you will need 8. The HDSP MADI only needs one.
Sampo Savolainen