24 Jul
2007
24 Jul
'07
6:56 a.m.
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On Mon, Jul 23, 2007 at 10:53:40PM -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
On 7/23/07, Chris McCormick <chris(a)mccormick.cx>
wrote:
USB audio interfaces seem to be pretty cheap and reliable. I'm using a FastTrack Pro
now, and previously used a USB Audiophile, both of which obtained for less than US$100
each, and they sound great.
I have an ASUS laptop; the hda-intel chip on-board is caca. It's also hardwired to the
same interrupt as the video driver-- useless for low-latency audio.
You could use firewire, but note that that some ASUS laptops (like mine) also have the
dreaded Ricoh FireWire chipset, which, alas, does not have the "works" bit
enabled. It's also hardwired to the same interrupt as the video and the hda-intel,
doh. Firewire ExpressCards and PC Cards are cheap though, I got one with a TI chipset for
US$60, and the ExpressCard slot shares an interrupt only with eth0.
For live use, I have been using a self-powered FastTrack USB audio interface with:
jackd -R -P70 -dalsa -r44100 -p128 -n3 -Phw:0,0 -Chw:0,1
The FastTrack is stuck at 44100 on Linux, for some reason, which is annoying but
acceptable to me in a live situation. The Audiophile USB runs at 44100 or 48000 and
beyond.
- -ken
Hi All,
I'm about to purchase this ASUS laptop:
<http://www.alvio.com/config.aspx?t=&product_ID=11110>
I was just wondering if anyone had experience with the sound device
(Realtek ALC882D) or this laptop specifically? I will be 'touring' with
it next year. I chose this ASUS over a macbook based on the testimonies
on this list earlier in the year; thanks for yr help!
Don't count on the onboard sound being usable for live performance -
many (most) laptops' onboard sound is way too noisy and HDA intel
systems have lots of driver problems due to the flexibility of the
architecture combined with lack of docs for driver writers.
If at all possible, test one in a store with a Linux live CD
containing a recent ALSA such as the latest Knoppix release. Even
better, test with a 64studio live CD and try to run JACK for a while
to see if you get xruns. Next best would be a first hand account from
someone with the EXACT same laptop. If neither of those are possible,
make sure you can easily return it if the sound is too bad for your
needs.
Even though Intel Macs also use HDA audio, their quality control is
better as their target market is media production vs. web surfing and
gaming.
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