UA-25EX is good, but doesn't do full duplex at 96 kHz. Can do it at all other sampling frequencies. Fritz On 30 April 2011 00:34, Gabriel M. Beddingfield <gabrbedd(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, 30 Apr 2011 20:50:52 +0200 Jeremy Jongepier <jeremy(a)autostatic.com> wrote: Buggritt! -- Will J Godfrey http://www.musically.me.uk Say you have a poem and I have a tune. Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.

the fast track pre amps are lame.. go with edirol ua 25 ex solid build nice product. Or you can check out the Nu Nu at www.beats2.com Thank you Ronald Stewart Creative Director Trinity Audio Group Inc. 9854 National Blvd. #322 Los Angeles CA 90034 310-733-9285 ronaldjstewart(a)gmail.com www.indamixx.com www.beats2.com On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 7:19 PM, S. Massy <lists(a)wolfdream.ca> wrote:

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 11:15:34AM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: One thing to consider is that Edirol's mic inputs are a bit on the noisy side. If it matters depends on the type of sounds you want to record and the mics used. With most condenser or electret mics you're more or less on the safe side with the contribution from the preamp being comparable to the one from the mic. Exceptions would be mics with really low self noise e.g. Shure KSM42, Neumann TLM103, AKG 414. When using dynamic mics the Edirol preamps rather than the mic's impedance will dominate the noise level. Again it depends on the application if this is problem, but for some it surely is. Ciao, -- FA

On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 02:27:18PM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: It's actually the combination of self noise and sensitiviy that matters. At 5dB(A) the NT1-A must be one the lowest noise mics available. Fortunately it also has quite a high sensitivity: -32 dBV/Pa. Combining the two means its produces -121dBV(A) of noise, comparable to the Edirol's EIN at maximum gain. So now all depends on how well the Edirol maintains its EIN at reduced gain. I probably could measure one next week. Really good preamps have a constant EIN in the top 20-25dB of their gain range, but I doubt if the Edirol holds up to that. That should be OK. OTOH, I'd say mics of this class deserve something better... Ciao, -- FA

How about the Denecke AD-20? Two XLR inputs with preamp that plug right into the an S/PDIF. http://www.core-sound.com/inbox/1.php Does anyone know of other microphone preamps on the market that plug directly into the S/PDIF?

On Sunday 01 May 2011 22:25:42 Ivan K wrote: Samson has/had a single-channel tube pre-amp that outputs spdif (and has an input to merge two of them into a stereo signal. I don't know about there quality, given the price I don't expect too much. But at least they where good enough so Behringer copied them... And somewhere on my hdd I had link to a do-it-yourself pre-amplifier with stereo xlr input and spdif-output. Doesn't seem to hard to built. The pre-amp will be harder to get right. Have fun, Arnold

On Sun, May 01, 2011 at 05:29:29PM +0200, Arnold Krille wrote: That is exactly what Neumann have done for their digital versions of e.g. the U87. The AD converter is inside the mic and there is no analog gain control at all. But they had to redesign the analog input circuits of the AD to match the actual capsule to get that far. Don't know if they went as far as actually integrating the first FET into the AD chip and connecting the capsule directly to it, but it's certainly possible to do this today. OTOH there's no real life reason why a mic should be capable of handling extremely low and high (above 120dB SPL) levels at the same time. Having a switch to select one of the two regimes would not be a showstopper at all. Ciao, -- FA

On Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:19:46 -0400 "S. Massy" <lists(a)wolfdream.ca> wrote: Had a look at the spec for this online and it looks very interesting. However, is the High Z input balanced? (I don't suppose you know what the actual impedance is). Also are the 1/4in outputs balanced? -- Will J Godfrey http://www.musically.me.uk Say you have a poem and I have a tune. Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.

Mark Knecht wrote: Hi Mark, Just a reminder, the UA25 is the device I wrote about re: the crackling noise made by mouse movement when the UA is connected to my laptop. I have not resolved that problem. Power is supplied by the USB connection. HTH, dp

On 05/01/2011 12:27 AM, Mark Knecht wrote: I have a UA-25 too and zero issues so far. Only some grounding-related hum sometimes. It's successor is the UA-25EX but from what I've understood this device has been discontinued also, or will be anytime soon. Best, Jeremy

On Sun, May 1, 2011 at 1:57 AM, Jeremy Jongepier &lt;jeremy(a)autostatic.com&gt; wrote: <Snip> <SNIP> As far as I can tell, no, I don't. I own a couple of USB hubs and 4 external hard drives. None of them functioned at all when attached without their power supplies. - Mark

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 3:19 AM, Hakan Koseoglu &lt;hakan(a)koseoglu.org&gt; wrote: Hi Hakan, OK, so I guess obviously the USB port must supply some amount power or even a simple flash drive wouldn't work as the memory in it has to require some sort of +/- supplies to function at all. In terms of my external USB hard drive, I have 3 like the following link except mine are 500GB. http://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Technology-DriveStation-External-HD-CX500U2/d… This drive ships with an external wall wart power supply and doesn't function without it on any machine I've plugged it into. I think what I've going to do is drop by Guitar Center and see if they have any open devices they will allow me to plug into my laptop, just to see if they are recognized at all. Cheers, Mark

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 2:36 PM, Arnold Krille &lt;arnold(a)arnoldarts.de&gt; wrote: OK - I have an old laptop SATA drive around here. Maybe I can pick up a small case at Frys and then use it to test. Thanks for the idea. Cheers, Mark

Thomas Vecchione wrote: My experience with notebook hard drives in external cases is they almost all work without either an external power supply or using 2 USB connections (2nd for additional power). I have 2 notebook hard drives here in external USB cases, and they both have worked fine on three Toshiba notebooks here (all low-end Toshibas), modern and very old Dell business laptops, Asus netbooks, a very old IBM Thinkpad, and HP/Compaq notebooks. The older of the 2 external cases didn't cooperate with a decidedly-high-end Sony Vaio notebook; that required using the 2nd USB connection for extra power. Since I was having trouble with the older external case mentioned above, I contacted the vendor. They pointed out that the drive controller circuitry draws power, in addition to whatever power the drive inside pulls. Apparently the circuitry in that older case was drawing just enough more to take power consumption over the limit and the notebook's USB power protection would shut off power to the device trying to draw too much power. I can recommend Nextech's NX2 external USB drive housing, works beautifully and currently holds a Toshiba 60GB 7200RPM notebook hard drive. While it includes a 2-connector USB cable (2nd one just brings in USB power connection), I've never needed to use it. I don't know what the impact of laptop power management might have on supplying current to USB ports when running on battery. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

I'm quite late to this thread, but I recently purchased an ART USB Dual Pre Microphone Preamp and have been quite happy with it so far. I have not used its USB connectivity, but jacked its outputs into my Delta 1010 and it sounds very good - it's nice and quiet and had no trouble providing phantom power to a Rode NT1A using battery power. It's a USB1.1 device so if I were to use it as a USB audio device, I'd only get 16 bits and either 44.1 or 48 KHz from it, but that's fine for my use. It takes either 1/4" or XLR inputs (both balanced) and gives 1/4" balanced outputs. It can take power from a battery, external power supply, or USB connection. I have not tried providing phantom power to a mic using the USB connection. I don't think this is quite what the original poster was looking for, but so far I've been very happy with this and wanted to mention its existence. -- ====================================================================== Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh(a)brainiac.com Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa

On Tue, 3 May 2011 08:13:29 -0700 Mark Knecht &lt;markknecht(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: That's the one. Good idea! I'll try that soon. -- ====================================================================== Joe Hartley - UNIX/network Consultant - jh(a)brainiac.com Without deviation from the norm, "progress" is not possible. - FZappa

On Saturday 30 April 2011 23:33:24 Mark Knecht wrote: If your laptop has standard-conforming usb-ports, they will provide the power needed (and spec'ed in the standard). Actually most laptops tend to supply more then the max of the spec. The reason behind this is that many external hdds need more then standard power and thus use two connectors. But on laptops both of these would be on the same power- supply anyway and physical ports are notoriously short. So they provide more power and make most hdds happy when connected with just one connector. Have fun, Arnold

Mark Knecht wrote: I have 1 external USB hard drive, it works fine hooked up to a single USB2 port on my Toshibas. It contains a 2.5" notebook hard drive. I've been told that external hard drives that use desktop-sized 3.5" or larger hard drive technology require more power than the USB port alone can provide. Most such drives I've seen came with external power supplies, or special USB cables that used 2 ports to provide power. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

On Sat, 30 Apr 2011 17:55:59 -0400 Thomas Vecchione &lt;seablaede(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Well this one looks interesting but it's ucking expensive. Also, from the blurb on their site is seems it is limited to 24bit 48k on Linux "As a class-compliant audio device, the USBPre 2 is limited to a maximum data rate of 24-bit, 48 kHz in Windows, Linux, and Mac OS versions 10.4 to 10.5.7. Mac OS 10.5.8 and higher support the audio class 2.0 device and can address the USBPre 2 up to 24-bit, 192 kHz. To enable higher sampling rates in Windows OS, download the available Windows ASIO driver." For me, it's also significant overkill and I have an very nice little analogue mixer so all I really want is straight I/O - but nobody seems to do that :( -- Will J Godfrey http://www.musically.me.uk Say you have a poem and I have a tune. Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.

Hi all, just my report. I ended up buying the USBPre2. It works great under Linux, but since ALSA does not have USB2.0 support yet, I can only use 48k sample rate. The sound that comes out of the device is really good quality. Pros: + I can't even start comparing with the SaffirePro, it is REALLY MUCH BETTER, no doubt. One second of testing is enough. + I don't know what could be more important then support and sound quality, but it has a good number of out/input options. Cons: + ALSA could offer better support for USB2.0, even though it works great under 48k. (but it's more an ALSA feature request) + it's a bit expensive. I don't know if the price is fair, but maybe it is. Maybe they just use good quality parts and assembly in US instead of China. I don't know.

2011/5/25 Rafal Zawadzki &lt;bluszcz(a)bluszcz.net&gt;et>: Can you tell, if [Alesis MultiMix 8 USB 2.0 FX] is supported ? Another interesting devices is [Focusrite - Scarlett 18i6 USB2] -- E.R.