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In Reply to: What sound card or dac to buy? posted by Frank25 on December 1, 2006 at 08:10:27:
HI Frank,
Follow Ups:
Here is what I dont understand. How come no one makes a very high quality 2channel sound card but without all the recording features that the pro cards like the Lynx have?? I just want the good sound quality, I dont need all the I/O and features that the pro cards have. If they got rid of all the extras they could probably sell it for around $500 and I think alot of audiophiles on a budget might be interested in such a product. M-audio had a similar idea with the Audiophile 24/192 but it fell a bit short IMO.
Hi Frank,What I don't get is why you think the L22 has all these recording features.
It has 1 analog out, and 1 in, 1 digital out and 1 in. That is pretty basic, and I have seen it for as little as $600.
But what it does have and is well worth the money (IMHO) are solid drivers and a great software.
If it really is a price thing, than maybe you can look at the Digital audio labs card, or the emu 1212.
But seriously, the Lynx is the real deal, and IMHO worth the extra dough.
Plus, you MAY want those extra ins and outs in the future. I know I never thought I would, but I use them all the time.
Good luck...just trying to save you the dissappointment that you had with teh M audio.
Well what I mean is that wih almost all the pro grade soundcards your paying extra for high quality recording capabilities that most audiophile types will never use. I just wish someone made a stripped down soundcard that focuses mainly on playback instead of recording.
No Frank, you have it all wrong.Think of this as a Pre amp/ Dac, not a recording device, and you will see the value. IMHO, the PC with a Lynx card can be an awesome DAC/pre...WIth the L22, you have 2 additional things you can connect, and software to switch between. And AJ is right that you can use a remote for VC ( you can easily do this with Foobar too).
Do you balk at paying more for a dac with "uneeded" inputs? I mean really, why would anyone need more than 1 input on a dac??? But all the ones I have seen have at least 2 if not 3-4...Imagine what that Benchmark dac would cost if they just would get rid of all those inputs!!! Maybe $600 or so, but the few who would buy it would be unhappy soon when they wanted to connect more things. Face it, systems evolve, and needs now are rarely what they are in the future.
The lynx is well worth the money, and I would easily pit it against a more expensive stand alone DAC...it makes my $1200 Birdland piece sound out dated. Tuckers has said that he ditched his highly regarded Audio note for the sound of the Lynx.
Also, IMHO the Lynx with its 32/200 resolution is somewhat future proof, and while it does have some nice recording feature, you might just use them..I have already made a few recordings from some LPs that I had archived to a HIFI VCR tape. I was really glad the Lynx could make those recordings come to life.
Look, don't be pennywise and pound foolish. Buy good quality for those active monitors.
I think your taking what im saying entirely wrong. Im not saying there is anything wrong with the Lynx or any of the other pro sound cards on the market. What I am saying is most of them have a ton of features that the average audiophile doesn't need. They are mainly for use in home/pro recording studios for high quality recording and monitoring. Alot of the money your paying for a professional grade sound card goes towards the ADC part of the dac used for recording. Most "audiophiles" don't need recording capabilities. All im saying is I wish a company would make a sound card with the quality of the Lynx and Rme cards but in stripped down version for high quality playback only at a lower price. Im sure the Lynx is a great sound card and I will probably end up buying it, im just wishing out loud.
Hi,I own a Lynx card as well, but i also own a couple of different Creative cards and a couple of different M-Audio cards.
Professional mixer features in the software can be very handy for audiophile play-back, even if at first the features go unused. I have found the Lynx software to be very flexible in this regard. In my case, I am using a card with multichannel outputs so that I can run a digital crossover on the computer. The Lynx software allows me to reroute all sounds that any application to the inputs that the crossover software is using. It allows me to reroute an analog or digital signal from an external source to the same place. It also allows a global key combination to lower and raise the volume or mute the output. This is a big thing for me because it means that I can remotely control the volume with a bluetooth keyboard no matter what application has focus on the computer.
Using the computer as a digital crossover is probably not a common thing, but I imagine that in the near future PC based digital room correction will become more popular, and it will require similar mapping if a person wants to use more than one application for playing media or wants to feed the PC with external digital / analog sources.
While other lower priced cards have a subset of these features, I haven't found any other drivers/mixers that are as flexible as the Lynx. The Lynx also sounds better than any of the others I've tried, and is comparable if not superior to stand-alone audiophile DACs many times its street price.
Im pretty surprised though that the Lynx is as good or better than many external dacs. You would think an external Dac with an external power supply would sound better than a sound card using a crapy computer power supply and all that electrical noise in the computer case. I give Lynx alot of credit for making an internal sound card sound so great!
I was pretty surprised as well. As mentioned previously, I had used a few other soundcards, and while I liked using the computer as a transport, I didn't like using it as a DAC. I bought the Lynx from a company that offered a no-fuss thirty day return policy because I had doubts about it being any better that the others I had tried.I also own an Audio Aero Prima SE tube DAC/Preamp, which has garnered some of the highest praise ever given to a DAC at Six Moons. The Audio Aero is a very fine sounding DAC and a beautifully made piece of equipment, but it is up for sale. The Audio Aero DAC cost five thousand dollars more than the Lynx I bought.
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