Sound card recommendation, best sound... Options

[RIV@NVX]

I'm selling TerraTec EWS 88 MT and DMX 6fire, which are a bit older cards, but are on the level you want. PM if you are interested.

[xte]

I own EMU 0404 USB and that was my winner for listening-recording/price cards sound quality is outstanding - and if you plan recording it has 0 latency direct monitoring and ghost power for mic. if you don't need power for mic choose 0202 usb same quality for listening and circa 40% cheaper.
remember to buy a nice speakers as well otherwise all combination with sound device won't bring you any effect.
reg.
Karol

[ElephantTLK]

Thanks for help. I emailed HT OMEGA for info. I can get it. Now i have to choose between this:

EMU 0404
HT Omega Claro+
Asus Xonar

And i think that it will be HT Omega. Good enough? Is Emu any better in terms of SQ?

[ElephantTLK]

Guys final question.

HT Omega Claro+ or Asus Xonar D2?

I am more on Claro side. What do you guys think?

[thuneau]

Guys final question.

HT Omega Claro+ or Asus Xonar D2?

I am more on Claro side. What do you guys think?

I have the Asus Xonar D2 and am very impressed with the sound quality. Those Burr Brown converters on all channels sound just sweet. I use 3 pairs of outputs as digital crossover for my speakers, so the consistency is great.
The Claro from what I read has premium components on the main LR output only- so if you listen mainly to stereo it will be just fine.
Both AKM (in Claro) and Burr Brown converters are very good. Burr Brown has a slightly mellower sound and solid low end.

[greynol]

Both AKM (in Claro) and Burr Brown converters are very good. Burr Brown has a slightly mellower sound and solid low end.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....974#entry149481

The usual "audiophile" speak of non-audio related terms which are completely subjective and open to redefinition on a whim, are useless for any sort of progression in discussion.

[thuneau]

Both AKM (in Claro) and Burr Brown converters are very good. Burr Brown has a slightly mellower sound and solid low end.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....974#entry149481

The usual "audiophile" speak of non-audio related terms which are completely subjective and open to redefinition on a whim, are useless for any sort of progression in discussion.

Well, OK.
facing risk of getting banned I would then say to the OP, get the Asus because it measures 2dB better on S/N test and its THD+N is smaller by a couple of 1000th of 1%. There, that surely makes it a better sound card.

[Axon]

The E-MU 0404 USB is a transparent unit(just as probably all of the units you listed are), but it's super versatile; it has I/Os for virtually any analog or digital device, and can be used stand alone for most functions, even. It's like a Swiss Army Pocket Audio Box.

Agreed, but it is also extremely CPU-intensive, and very jitter-sensitive. On my P4 3ghz, doing anything with it uses 35% of my CPU time - all of it in the kernel. On my (much faster) Core Duo laptop, the thing skips like crazy - probably due to induced jitter from the wireless adapter. And it still uses 10% of the CPU time in the kernel!

The hardware is a miracle, but as usual, Creative shot the drivers in the foot.

[j7n]

No such experience with E-MU 0404 PCI. I guess, don't buy external if your intention isn't to carry it around with a laptop.

[rui gominho]

I recently acquired a pair of Maudio 2496 for a project I'm working on. They cost me around 100Eur each and in my opinion are worth every cent. Clean sounding, great support on *nix and windows 2k/xp. Don't know about vista though...

my 2 cents

[cabbagerat]

The E-MU 0404 USB is a transparent unit(just as probably all of the units you listed are), but it's super versatile; it has I/Os for virtually any analog or digital device, and can be used stand alone for most functions, even. It's like a Swiss Army Pocket Audio Box.

Agreed, but it is also extremely CPU-intensive, and very jitter-sensitive. On my P4 3ghz, doing anything with it uses 35% of my CPU time - all of it in the kernel. On my (much faster) Core Duo laptop, the thing skips like crazy - probably due to induced jitter from the wireless adapter. And it still uses 10% of the CPU time in the kernel!

Please don't muddy the waters by calling this Jitter. Ok, so it's a variation in the time of digital events, and can technically be called jitter - but isn't what most people understand by the term. Kernel latency is probably the right concept - and can often be caused by drivers.

[frogtalk]

[size=4] Hi!! I am also looking at a Xonar D2 / D2X sound card. However, what I need that I cannot find is the EXACT size of the cards. I have a Dell Dimension 9200, and have 2 PCI slots that should fit the D2 and two PCI-E slots.. each on one side of my 8800GT graphics card.... so room on either side of the graphics card is an issue as well.

Any help would be appreciated.

[palswim]

If you're planning on using the S/PDIF output to drive a separate AV amplifier, just pick up a $30 C-Media CM8738/8768-based sound card and run dOgbert's bit-perfect drivers. You can't get better than bit-perfect, to the best of my knowledge.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but I'm looking for a simple digital output soundcard as well. Unfortunately, I run Server 2008 (x64), so I can't use Dogbert's unsigned drivers. At the moment, I use CMedia's Beta drivers for Vista, which only seem to use the analog output.

So, do any other simple, cheap, S/PDIF-output sound cards exist which have signed Vista x64 drivers (which actually output through the S/PDIF interface)?