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Another excellent choice

Posted by Jim F. (A) on December 29, 2006 at 07:06:37

In Reply to: The Creative X-Fi posted by Jim F. on December 29, 2006 at 06:35:43:

> I avoid Creative simply because their products are so geared
> towards the PC/Gamer market they almost always cause problems
> for audiophile applications.

They have a semi-pro line, too. In fact, the Creative E-MU 1212M
would be an excellent choice. It has an optical input and output
(1 each) that can be switched between S/PDIF (for anything
up to 96 kHz) and ADAT (for anything up to 192 kHz -- 4 stereo
channel-pairs at single-speed ADAT [44.1/48], 2 stereo
channel-pairs at double-speed ADAT/S-MUX [88.2/96], or
1 stereo channel-pair at quad-speed ADAT/S-MUX4 [176.4/192]).
It also has RCA coax input and output jacks (one each) --
S/PDIF only, 1 stereo channel-pair up to 96 kHz.

The analog section is on a daughter card, which is a nuisance,
but if you're not going to use the A/D or D/A converters,
you can leave it off (you'll get some error messages when the
PatchMix DSP app loads, but the card will still function).
Also, the analog inputs and outputs (on the daughter card)
aren't audiophile-friendly (this is a semi-pro card,
remember) -- they're 1/4" TRS balanced inputs and outputs.
I use a Behringer headphone amp when I'm listening to the
card's analog outputs -- it has TRS balanced inputs.

What else? Well, the card's on-board DACs are excellent, so
it sounds great even from its analog outputs (that's not just
my opinion -- it seems to be the consensus about the E-MU).

The PatchMix DSP control application has a rather steep learning
curve (semi-pro, again), which you **have** to master in order
to use the card at all. Also, PatchMix takes freaking **forever**
to load when you boot up your machine (even a fast machine).
I have had problems with PatchMix crashing the whole machine
(blue screen) if another sound card (like an X-Fi) is enabled
on the same PC while PatchMix is loading. But it doesn't
always happen, and lately it hasn't been happening, so I've been
living dangerously and keeping the X-Fi enabled when I reboot (you can
always boot up in Safe Mode -- F8 -- if you're stuck and have to
disable the "rival" sound card).

This is also one of the few cards on the market -- consumer or
professional -- that gives you full access to 24/192 via
ADAT/SMUX4. Steinberg WaveLab gets along fine with this card,
for recording or playing back at that speed. Also Foobar
(with my new fast 3.9 GHz D805, I can upsample to 24/192 and
play back on the E-MU with no problems).

But the E-MU is also an extraordinary bargain -- look it up
on Amazon and check out the prices it's available for.

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The Cable Cooker

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