One other thing. I want the audio interface to be able to provide 48 volt phantom powering for a pair of good small diaphram condenser mikes, which I believe both of the afore mentioned devices provide. Russ Button wrote:

Very cool. Precisely the kind of advice I was looking for. I'm not hung up on USB being the only solution. Mona would be an ideal solution. I'll try to score one on EBay. Thanks! Russ PS> I used to have a singer in my old band that was named Mona. She was righteous too! http://rbso.button.com/img/mona4a.jpg Loki Davison wrote:

On 7/16/07, Russ Button <russ(a)button.com> wrote: arrg! windoze drivers.. no. ;) http://www.webalice.it/g_pochini/ead/ native alsa drivers. I don't use the mona though, was just looking at one when deciding. I've got an echo gina 3G. Quite a few people use Echo cards though. You can get the layla24 in cardbus too if you want something with more ins or just use the ADAT option on one of the smaller ones. Loki

Hi Ken! I'm going to have to pass. USB 1.x just isn't going to cut it for 24 bit, 96 kHz, live location recording. As you well know, a lot of products get built before they should because of issues like this. Reminds me of the NeXT computer, which probably would have been great on a 300 Mhz Pentium, but not a Motorola 68030 processor. Coolness, Russ Ken Restivo wrote:

A lot of good recommendations! I am doing this on a serious amateur basis, not a production professional basis. And I'm not recording complex situations either, but rather am looking to record live chamber music. I've got a brass quintet these days and my wife plays with a string quartet. She's the professional musician in the family. I'm also in the Union (Local 6), but that's so I can work the Chinese funerals in San Francisco. So I figure to just put up a couple of good condenser mikes in an ORTF configuration, in just the right spot in the hall, and do it that way. No PA systems in sight. I used to use a Revox A77 open reel machine for this sort of thing years ago and got pretty decent results. It would be nice to be able to add in another couple of mikes later to experiment with other mike techniques, but I doubt I'll ever need more than 4 mikes tops. I saw a friend using a mike preamp feeding into some sort of USB audio interface, feeding into a laptop at a Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra concert in Berkeley a few months ago. I began figuring it was time to get back into it, especially now that the wife and I are both playing chamber music again. I just scored a Behringer tube mike preamp today off of EBay, so for right now, I just need something pretty simple. I want to do 24 bit, 96 kHz recording and then produce DVD-audio discs for playback on my hi-end audiophile system at home. I'm not familiar with Audour, but I'll look into it! Russ Reuben Martin wrote:

Loki Davison wrote: No. I'm not using Behringer tube mikes. What I scored is a tube based preamp. I have limited experience with Behringer gear, but all of it has been pretty good to date. What I've used is an active crossover, a 150 wpc power amp as a sub-woofer amp, and the active EQ gizmo. All of it seemed to work pretty well. I hear their mixers are pretty bad, but I have no first-hand knowledge. I figured that the preamp was probably fine, and if it turns out to be a turkey, I only blew $70 on it. At the moment, I don't have mikes of my own to use, but I do have a friend with a nice collection I can borrow from. In years past, I had a pair of Nakamichi CM-700 mikes I used to use with cardioid capsules, in an ORTF configuration. It got me some excellent results. I'll probably go with something like that again as a starter and then go from there. As for my interest in going 24 bit, 96 kHz, it's really a matter of learning about the merits of higher sampling rates than the standard CD grade. A couple of friends tell me that DVD-audio is distinctly superior to standard CD grade audio and capturing it live at 24/96 is the way for me to find out. I'll then burn it to both DVD-audio and to 16 bit, 44.1 kHz CD grade and take a listen. Russ

Loki Davison wrote: If it isn't already clear, there's a lot I'm not clear about. So this is all going to be an excellent learning exercise for me. I'll take any advice you care to throw my way! It's all been very helpful! I have plenty of experience in hi-end analog audio, but very little real experience in the digital end of things. Just think of me as an old dog wanting to learn a few new tricks. Russ

Fons Adriaensen wrote: There's a lot that I'm ignorant about with regards to digital audio. As I said, a couple of friends who do location recording similar to what I plan have said that DVD-audio, at 24/96, is decidedly better sounding than standard grade CD recordings at 16/44.1, which is something I'd like to hear for myself. That's really what this is all about. My playback system is one of the best I know of, at any price. It's not the most expensive gear in the world, but it plays as well as the most expensive gear in the world. For starters, I plan to go out and record my wife's string quartet at 24/96. I'll bring it home and will listen to it at 24/96. I'll convert it to 16/44.1 and will listen to it that way as well. Then I'll burn 'em both to media and will listen to them through my DVD player. I have no idea what the experience will be like. I may hear nothing different, or I may hear a great deal. Chances are the differences won't be huge, but I really have no idea. I hear people say things but until I do it for myself, I really don't know. Perhaps someone could point me at an article or two that discusses the relative merits of different bit and sampling rates and what to expect from them. Russ

Kevin Cosgrove wrote: It's just a standard Samsung DVD player that supports DVD-audio. I wanted a player that supported DVD-audio, SACD and standard CD. It was even last year's model, so I got it on a closeout for about $80. I've not experienced much difference in digital sources. A CD player is a CD player is a CD player pretty much. Yes you can hear differences between the super-duper whiz-bang gizmo and a Radio Shack battery powered portable, but it's a lot less than the sales guys would like you to believe. The big difference in the quality of audio playback is in the loudspeakers, their room placement, the sonic qualities of the room, and to a lesser extent, the driving amplification. There can be significant differences in phono cartridges, but this forum is dedicated to digital audio, so that discussion is totally out of scope. Russ

On 18 July 2007 at 7:43, Fons Adriaensen <fons(a)kokkinizita.net> wrote: There's a DVD-A of a thing called "The Resolution Project", and I got a copy of that from Minnetonka Audio. At one time this link worked. http://www.mtechmarketing.com/SMT_081705_ResolutionProject.html I don't have the hardware required to listen to that, but a friend of mine does. The disc has two songs on it, a jazz trio (piano, upright bass & drums) and a string quartet. Each song was simultaneously recorded at three different PCM resolutions: 16-bit/44.1kHz, 24-bit/96kHz, and 24-bit/192kHz. Subsequent to that they recoded the recordings into MP3, WMA, and AAC. My friend and I listened to the recordings in order from expected worst sound to expected best sound. MP3 sounded just OK. WMA was slightly better to us, and AAC was again noticeably better. The jump from AAC to 16-bit/44.1kHz was dramatic, as was the next jump to 24-bit/96kHz. Going up to 24-bit/192kHz was also better yet, but not as dramatic. After that we went back and listened to MP3 again and it sounded as if it was being played through a distortion pedal for an electric guitar by comparison. The DVD-A didn't answer the question as to whether it was 16-bit versus 24-bit that made for better sound, or whether it was 44.1kHz versus 96kHz that made for better sound. Certainly something did. An issue of "Recording" magazine, which I read sometime within the last year, focused on mastering. The mastering engineer who wrote one of the articles encouraged folks to always record at the greatest bit depth available, but suggested that sample rate increases aren't really needed. My next recording will be at 24-bit depth and 44.1kHz. Cheers.... -- Kevin

On 18 July 2007 at 16:31, "Stuart Allie" <Stuart.Allie(a)hydro.com.au> wrote: I still have the DVD-A. I suppose we could bring in another party and do just what you say. It's hard for me as the subject to say for sure, but I don't think I had much bias. I had a lot of curiosity, not ever hearing the higher resolutions before. In my message I gave the qualitative statements. There were some objective measures as well. For instance, coming back from 24/192 land into MP3 land, the piano had a distinctive sound of a flanger on it, and I'd presume it's artifacts from compressing to MP3. Between 16/44.1 and 24/96 details like the rustle of the drummers brushes on the snare became apparent, as did the sounds of customers eating at tables. Going from 24/96 to 24/192 the spacial perception improved, but the timbre of the instruments didn't change much, if at all. At 24/192 more details of customer movements, things like putting on a coat, became more identifiable. For the string quartet, bow noises showed up at 24/96, and traffic outside showed up at 24/something. When we discovered things like this, we went back down the quality chain to see where the line of demarcation was between being able to hear a feature or not being able to hear it. That's still not what you were after, but it's a bit more objective than my earlier writing. I got mine for free from Minnetonka. You might write for one; that's what I did. I've read the same, and it's easy to see why. Especially if music is going to be compressed to 16-bit CDs, then starting with greater than 16 bits seems like a must, or that 16-bit CD will be more like 12-bit sound (with the number of effective bits being strongly influenced by the amount & type of compression). Don't forget that the whole signal path up to the A/D converter needs to be clean (free from noise & distortion as much as possible) or whatever "dirt" that exists in the potential bandwidth added by the sample rate will be captured, whereas less would be captured at 44.1kHz. I don't know enough to comment on that. I'll add it to my list. Thanks.... -- Kevin

On 18 July 2007 at 10:21, Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote: Nope. I'd never heard any music with quantization/rate better than 16-bit/44.1kHz. I didn't intend to answer the question of which format is better nor for which application. I was just curious as to what it sounds like. Now I have a subjective sense of what it sounds like. I can sort of remember what 2" 24 track audio sounds like, but that was in a much better room. I wouldn't try to prove it, but I think that analog format sounded better to me that 16/44.1. Now I've gone out on a limb. For my own purposes, I'll be going with 24-bit, because it makes sense from the mastering point of view, and because my hardware should do that. I'll find out how well it works when I try, and I could try some objective, measurement based tests to verify this. I'm going to also go with 44.1kHz because I'm recording against material recorded by my bass player and my guitar player, and they run at 44.1kHz. I believe ardour wants all of it's data in the same format for each project, though projects can differ from each other. Cheers..... -- Kevin

On 18 July 2007 at 13:12, Paul Davis <paul(a)linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote: Even objective test benefit from double-blind testing, for instance drug efficacy tests. So, I agree with folks suggesting a blind test. It'd be fun to read the results of a good double-blind test of the "Resolution Project" DVD-A from someone with a really good listening room. Where I listened was fair, but not as good as a rung out recording studio. OK, noted. Thanks.... -- Kevin

On Tue, 2007-07-17 at 20:23 -0700, Russ Button wrote: Two points: first of all, just try 24 bits. It makes substantially more difference than going from 48k->96k. second, don't bother with this test unless you have some way to do it double blind. otherwise, you will just join the legion of audio-centric airheads who rabbit on about what sounds better than what without ever following the most well-established, widely used, universally accepted principal of testing. --p

Russell Button wrote: I've been using an Edirol UA-5 for 2 channel, 24 bit, 96 KHz live location recording, with phantom power, over USB 1.1 for a couple of years and it works fine. I was even using it with an old Thinkpad 600E, 266 MHz PII. The UA-5 does need external 9 VDC power. Some people buy way more equipment than they need. On the software side, I record with Jack Timemachine. Later I EQ and master the recording with Ardour and Jamin. Some people run way more software than they need too.

On 18 July 2007 at 7:35, Fons Adriaensen <fons(a)kokkinizita.net> wrote: So, what's the advantage of 48kHz over 44.1kHz? Does that advantage outweigh whatever distortion is introduced from the sample rate conversion going to 44.1kHz, in the event that the recording is destined for a CD? I'm not partial to either rate, just curious about the advantages & disadvantages. Thanks.... -- Kevin

On 18 July 2007 at 9:38, Lars Luthman <lars.luthman(a)gmail.com> wrote: The question for me is one of how audible. That I don't know. -- Kevin

On Wed Jul 18, 2007 at 12:42:28PM +0300, Patrick Shirkey wrote: and VJ software, performance surfaces, GIMP.. good to know its being worked on - so when inexpensivve multitouch flatpanels start rolling off the container ships from Suzhou, we'll all be Lemurs finaly :P