sound card problem (help me)

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Freddy12

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hi guys ı have some questions about sound cards
1. what is most important thing about sound cards I need sound card for records set from my mixer and start FL

2.which one is better you think PCI , USB or Firewire I choose PCI since look like much cheaper and better performance

3. and last question which one you can advice me
1.m-audio delta 1010lt PCI
2.AUDIOPHILE 2496 USB
3.M-AUDIO FIREWIRE AUDIOPHILE
4.M-AUDIO AUDIOPHILE 192 PCI (for this one ı guess it has better sound quality if ım not wrong24 bits 192 khz other cards has 24 bits 96 khz you think this one better ? ) :grinning:
 
if you just want to record sets, most important is general audio quality. more specifically, you're looking for a high signal-to-noise ratio and low harmonic distortion factor. this is really the most important part - you won't enjoy a super-duper card with all kinds of great features if you get a constant hissing in your audio. note that a card's specs cannot always be fully trusted about this, sometimes the cost is a much better indicator: a 20-euro card will probably not deliver satisfying audio quality. m-audio sure is a good choice though.

improved sampling stats (96+ kHz, 24-bit) are nice to have, but not really necessary. especially sampling rates of above 48 kHz, like 96 or 192 are totally overrated and pretty much completely useless. 24-bit can be nice though.

usb/firewire are good if you need an external solution (such as for a laptop), otherwise go with pci.

multiple in/out channels are useful if you want to use external gear for your productions. otherwise, all you really need is 1 in and 1 out (but more are always good to have of course).
 
Thx Dfx your post is really explane everything its look like ı gonne choose
m-audio delta 1010lt PCI but something I see external hardwares usb and firewire have a Headphone output too cant I use my headphone with PCI ?
 
sure you can, but the main connectors will be somewhere on the backside of your pc. usually you would use the headphone connector of your sound/speaker system in that case. but you also have to consider if you want a seperate output channel for your headphones (such as for mixing with the pc - seperate output for cue and master), as opposed to just redirecting the regular speaker output to your headphones...
 
dfx said:
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improved sampling stats (96+ kHz, 24-bit) are nice to have, but not really necessary. especially sampling rates of above 48 kHz, like 96 or 192 are totally overrated and pretty much completely useless. 24-bit can be nice though.

...
Click to expand...

yes and no.
for recording sets that statement fits, for recording instruments and voices the higher sampling rate is useful though inaudible as it's way over the human Nyquist.

picture "painting by numbers", draw a sine wave - which one will be more precise, the one that gives you 44 points (the standard - creative is known to upsample to 48 and then convert to 44.1 in playback) to connect or the one that gives you 192 points to connect?

so it is useful in a producing environment but then, in days where peeps listen to music on their phone speakers and tinny earplugs it's kinda relative. :smile1:
 
90degrees said:
picture "painting by numbers", draw a sine wave - which one will be more precise, the one that gives you 44 points (the standard - creative is known to upsample to 48 and then convert to 44.1 in playback) to connect or the one that gives you 192 points to connect?
Click to expand...

this is only half-true, as nyquist also states that a sampled sine wave at the nyquist frequency (i.e. a 24-kHz signal sampled at 48 kHz) will be perfectly reproduced as exactly the same sine wave on playback, even if the samples don't "look" like a sine wave any more. this is also true for any sine wave below the nyquist frequency. this is because reproduction isn't done as "straight lines between the sampled data points", but rather using the more real life sinc function.

any deviations from the sine wave in the sampled signal which cannot be reproduced after sampling due to too low sampling rate will be part of signals higher than the nyquist frequency, and therefore inaudible anyway. this is why those higher sampling frequencies are useless.

however this is all only true if there is a good low-pass filter in front of the sampling ADC, otherwise you'll get aliasing effects. so, higher sampling rates can help if the low-pass filter is either not good enough or simply missing. this should only be the case with low-end soundcards though.

this is all in theory of course :) in reality signals at the nyquist frequency might not be reproduced perfectly, but since the limit of human hearing is somewhere at 16-18 kHz and the nyquist frequency at 44.1 kHz is at 22 kHz, there is plenty of headroom.

and as you mention resampling: nyquist also states that conversions between sample rates are "lossless", as long as the same low-pass filter as mentioned above is used and also the sinc function is used.
 
don't get me wrong, not having a go at you...we're discussing...

hence my "split" statement, for our audible range the higher sample rate cards are surely overkill
(and as you stated pretty useless - here was my YES)
but for the mentioned production environment far more precise as it gives you the leeway to manipulate in very fine detail
and have the scope for fine tuning some frequencies that you rather feel than hear - never touch spectral analyzers btw j/k (here was my NO).
you're right in saying that the reproduction of an e.g. sinewave isn't done by just connecting your data points
but the more datapoints you have as reference the better and more accurate (in technical sense as in data volume to process) the foundation for your reproduction and that's where your other argument "you get what you pay for" comes in, like the soundchip used and the algorithms programmed into the card, and also other electronic components used to keep your signal path clean and undistorted (to some an argument against internal PCI cards for that reason, though imo an external card can pick up noise and humm from other sources too)

cheers dfx for some theorising and refreshing those technical audio related brain parts, servus to Östereich! :grinning:
 
ı guess ı gonne chose 24 bit 192khz with ESI Juli I dont know if you guys heard this sound card
 
interesting card to say the least.
I don't have any experience with it but it got good critics from a reputable source
ESI Pro Julia

seems you can't go wrong for the price.
 
interesting card indeed, never seen such a design. the option for balanced input/output sure is cool if you have use for it, esp. for this price. only drawback i can see is that it features only a single stereo input and a single stereo output channel (setting aside spdif and midi), even when running on unbalanced i/o.
 
I got my ESI Juli 2 days ago I would like to share my experiment this card is amazing sound quality is perfect 24 bit 192 khz only 2 ms wih FL only I got problem from sound forge ı think its about drivers maybe ı have old one driver when ı open sound forge it always start 44khz quality and sound forge get forozen well ı think ı can fix it since driver has auto quality option I can prefer you this sound card guys really nice Low MS and good sound ı think cheapest sound card for this quality and in box you get Cubase too :D
 
someone please donate some .s and ,s to freddy :P :)
 
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