Can someone give input on USB/Firewire audio cards?

orca wrote on 10/4/2004, 7:00 PM
Hi all,

I'm thinking about purchasing a good D/A converter with a budget +/- $400. Can anyone here suggest what's good? I was thinking about Firewire 410 (M-Audio) or UA-25 USB Audio or UA5 (Edirol) or Behringer BCA2000. For the M-Audio, I'm a bit afraid of the horror stories about the driver and crashing your PC a lot. Actually I'm pretty much open to any model/brand as long as it's good for portable audio recording for dialogue, music, ADR, basically for DVD production. Anybody has had experiences using any of these equipment? Care to share and give your recommendations... or any other tool that you can recommend.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Regards,
Marty

Comments

donp wrote on 10/4/2004, 8:28 PM
orca, the Canopus line of it's Analog to Digital converters such as the ADVC-100 and 300 are excellant. I now have the AVDC-300 and it works great. As far as the audio cards you mentioned, I don't know about the Edirol or Behrenger cards other than they are quite good in most applications. I use the M-audio Revolution card and really like it. I not familiar with the horror stories you mention about M- Audio drivers of the 410 card. Maybe someone else can comment further on these sound cards, I'm an expert on them.
Spot|DSE wrote on 10/4/2004, 8:39 PM
Avoid USB audio cards if you want good, stable playback. Firewire is a good means, but PCI/Cardbus is best.
I'm using the FW410 here at the Gov't Expo, I use it a lot. It's only a problem if it's the last thing in a chain. Works great. No crashes ever from it on my end. Can't comment on other's problems with it.
efiebke wrote on 10/4/2004, 8:44 PM
SO FAR, I have no problems with MOTU's 828 MKII. SO FAR, it works near flawlessly with all of my audio/video software programs including Vegas. I'm having some wierdness with the 828 and Finale 2003 program. But it also may be with the MOTU MTPAV which I use extensively with the audio programs.

I have had major issues with other MOTU products in the past, though. But SO FAR, the 828 MKII is rock solid with Vegas.

I purposely say "SO FAR" because, well, anything can happen at anytime.

Also, the 828 MKII is firewire.

Ted
Coursedesign wrote on 10/4/2004, 9:24 PM
My FW410 needed updates from M-Audio's web site, but after that it's been rock stable for both recording and playback.
groovedude wrote on 10/4/2004, 10:48 PM
I'm new to the audio side of production, I'm looking to add some audio capabilities to my setup.

I intend to do some midi work with Garrington Personal Orchestra, and some vocal recording.

So, I was thinking about getting the EMU 1820m sound card, and some DAW software. However, I just read about Edirol's FA-101 Firewire interface. What seems nice about the FA-101 is that I can plug it onto my laptop to record anywhere if I want. Although, with the 1820m I'm getting great dynamics and onboard processing.

What I don't understand is how a firewire board works? Is it basically an external sound card? Do you disable an onboard card or take out one that is currently in it? If it records in 24bit doesn't your computer have to have some board in it to use a 24bit sound? From what I read on Edirol's site you don't need a soundcard to use the firewire board...

Is my 5400rpm laptop drive capable of really recording hi-res audio in real time?

...I'm really a newbie at this--I can make some kick-ass visuals though!

http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?product=2211&category=754&maincategory=754

http://www.edirol.com/products/info/fa101.html
farss wrote on 10/5/2004, 1:15 AM
The 410 has worked just fine for me, at the time it was the only unit that fitted all my needs. I was a bit nervous about M-Audio given the bad press they've recieved from the guys in the audio forum but interestingly they seemed to iron out the wrinkles in the WIndows drivers before the Mac ones.
Haven't tried it with my laptop yet which is really slack of me, that was one of the reasons I bought the thing but I can think of no reason why it shouldn't fly and I can also see no reason why 5400 RPM drives wouldn't be adeqate, mine keeps up with DV25 and the CPU is only a lowly PIII 900 MHz.

From an engineering point of view external boxes should be better than PCI as you get the low level analogue signals away from the very noisy confines of the PC and I think this is how a lot of the high end gear works, there's a PCI card to interface to an external box that contains the low level side of things.

I'd agree with SPOTs comment about watching where in the chain the 410 goes, I've had issues even with it on its own port with older Sony gear. Never an issue with newer stuff like DSR-11 though.

Bob.
logiquem wrote on 10/5/2004, 6:53 AM
Hi Marty,

My own experience is with an Edirol UA5 and operation is absolutly without problems (i really don't catch the "avoid usb units" advice here). You have no specific drivers to install and it is perfectly stale/ troubleless with win XP or 2K. I use it every day on my laptop for various in/out sound duties with every win apps.

My only complain is a technical one: the digital recording level from mic inputs is a little low to my taste (the mic preamp can can saturate before attaining 0 dB digital level). This behavior is the same you get from an Maudio box.

BTW, i will soon switch for an 8 channels recording unit, so, if you are interested in my Edirol, just email me... (logique.multimedia@videotron.ca)
orca wrote on 10/5/2004, 12:50 PM
Hi Spot,

Is this also true while you're recording? I wonder how USB will affect the datastream, is it too slow? Esp. for 24-bit/48/96? For Logiquem, if I still can't decide if I want USB yet, I read some ppl are having problems too, so I'm leaning toward either USB 2 or Firewire (faster connection). Thanks.

> Avoid USB audio cards if you want good, stable playback.


logiquem wrote on 10/5/2004, 1:04 PM
No problem with that Marty.

Just a matter of personnal experience i suppose, but USB 1.1 audio card *can* certainely work well...i made hours and hours of audio recording and have no complain with mine and Edirol drivers.

You could also take a look at the B-CONTROL AUDIO BCA2000 from Behringer. Really interesting unit, if it does what it is supposed to.
farss wrote on 10/5/2004, 2:02 PM
USB would probably work fine IF you only use it for recording. The 410 however does much more. You can record two mic/line ins at 24/96 and two channels from SPDIF at 16/48 plus output 6 channels at 24/96 and 2 channels at 16/48 via SPDIF as well I think another two channels at 24/96 for aux/phones. Thats a LOT of data going in two directions at once and that's where USB starts to fall apart.
That said USB is more goof proof than firewire. From my experience it only takes one errant device with firewire to screw up everything and from what I see it's hardware issues, the Macolites have as many if not more grief with firewire than PC users.

Bob.