Topic: Which M-Audio soundcard? (Read 4008 times)

jleerigby · « **on:** February 22, 2004, 12:13:28 pm »

I'm looking to upgrade my soundcard from an Audigy2 to somethimg better. I'll only use it to connect the digital out to my AV surround Amp. I've been looking at the M-Audio range and it looks like it's between the 7.1 Revolution and the 24/96 Audiophile.

If anyone has any experience of these cards and can make a recommendation I'd appreciate it.

bspachman · « **Reply #1 on:** February 22, 2004, 12:22:50 pm »

The Revolution has many problems with ASIO drivers. See the AVS HTPC forums for more than you wanted to know about the problems with this device.

I'd recommend shelling out a few extra bucks for one of the Delta series cards (the Audiophile, the DiO, etc.) or investigating RME (another mid-to-high-end manufacturer).

Best,
Brad

kiwi · « **Reply #2 on:** February 22, 2004, 06:09:48 pm »

Another card to look at is the M-Audio Firewire 410.

kiwi

jleerigby · « **Reply #3 on:** February 23, 2004, 01:07:41 am »

Thanks for the advice guys. I've ordered the M-Audio Delta DELTA DIO 24/96. At £152 it's quite a lot more expensive than the Revolution (£99) so it'd better be good.

Bryan · « **Reply #4 on:** February 23, 2004, 12:15:32 pm »

JLee,

I've got both the Audiophile 2496 and the DeltaDio. There isn't much difference in these cards except the i/o ports. I use the delta dio in my HTPC in the living room and the audiophile in the machine I use to rip/tag/manage my digital media and music library. I find that both cards have excellent sound quality and the latest drivers are much improved over the original ones. I do have some problems with DD5.1 audio for DVD playback with MC only. It works fine with PowerDVD and ATI's MMC.. That's one of the problems I reported and never received very much help. I plan to upgrade the hardware in that box so I haven't created that much fuss over the 5.1 audio - yet. I just switch to PowerDVD when I want to play 5.1 audio. I'm hoping to get it to work after the Hw upgrade though.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the m-audio products..

Bryan

jleerigby · « **Reply #5 on:** February 23, 2004, 12:24:03 pm »

Thanks Bryan for reassuring me. That was much needed after reading a few threads over at the AVS forum slagging off M-Audio drivers.

Wow! You use an M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 in the machine you just use for tagging? I use a SB Live for that! You are either rich, very passionate about music or live in the US where everything is half the price it is in the UK.

Bryan · « **Reply #6 on:** February 23, 2004, 12:55:27 pm »

I weened myself off of Creative's products and haven't looked back. I read some things about Creative's SPDIF output not being standard so I got the M-Audio card for the living room to connect to my AV receiver. I spend most of my time in my home office playing with digital media in all it's forms (music in APE format, photos, and making dvd's from home movies). I wanted a high quality card that had flexible I/O for those purposes. Not rich, just put more money in the hobbies that enjoy than I probably should. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I don't have a wife regulating my spending habits..

My media machine in my home office is a mere 550 P3 but it has SCSI Ultra 160 hard drives and CDROM/RW so it still performs quite well. IDE is no comparison to SCSI when working with very large files. I guess that's why all professional workstations are still mostly SCSI based.

I hope you like your Delta Dio. I enjoy mine. The Delta doesn't have as many analog I/O ports as the Audiophile but it also doesn't have that dongle either. Otherwise they're pretty much the same.

Bryan

jleerigby · « **Reply #7 on:** February 23, 2004, 01:12:39 pm »

Quote

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I don't have a wife regulating my spending habits..

Ah ha. That's where I'm going wrong. I must get one of those.

Quote

The Delta doesn't have as many analog I/O ports as the Audiophile but it also doesn't have that dongle either.

Analog isn't an issue for me I guess with an AV Amp. The flexibility of using Optical or Coax could come in useful though. Now what's that dongle you're on about? Don't tell me I've gone and bought a card that doesn't have a dongle

Bryan · « **Reply #8 on:** February 23, 2004, 02:05:06 pm »

The "dongle" is the attachment to the Audiophile card that gives it MIDI connectors that the Delta doesn't have, it also happens to be where they put the COAX SPDIF connectors. The Audiophile has analog connectors on the card. The Delta however has optical where the Audiophile doesn't.

It's kinda confusing to try to describe.. Here are the I/O configurations..

Audiophile Connections:
http://www.m-audio.com/images/en/callouts/big/audiophile_2496.jpg

Delta Dio 2496:
http://www.m-audio.com/images/en/callouts/big/dio_2496.jpg

Bryan

jleerigby · « **Reply #9 on:** February 23, 2004, 03:31:06 pm »

Ahh. The dongle's kinda cute but i don't really need it. [Jlee touches wood]It seems I made the right choice.[Jlee let's go of wood].

Thanks for your help Bryan. Much appreciated.

jleerigby · « **Reply #10 on:** February 26, 2004, 03:08:45 am »

OK. I installed the Delta last night and was impressed with the sound quality. However, I'm not convinced that it's that much better than the Audigy2 to justify the extra expense. I need to do a few more listening tests first.

To quote myself from another thread:

IMO the Audigy2 is a great soundcard for the money. It seems to be 'cool' to bash soundblasters but in the case of this card I think it's unwarranted.

Though the M-Audio Delta DIO is a high end card and sound quality is marginally better on high bit rate or lossless tracks the Audigy offers much more control and customisation of the sound which I'll miss when playing lower (128k) bit rate tracks. For example, I used the parameteric equaliser for these tracks and it really made a difference.

I also liked having the Bass & Treble controls as I could alter these on the fly using my remote and On Screen Display with Girder. I know that audiophiles will quiver at the thought of using any type of DSP or tone control but the reality is that it does help sometimes.

Tonight I will reinstall the Audigy2 alongside the Delta DIO and make a comparison to decide if the loss of easy to use tone controls is a worthwhile trade off for the marginally better sound output. One thing is for sure - at £50 compared to £150 the Audigy2 wins the value for money battle hands down.

JustinChase · « **Reply #11 on:** February 26, 2004, 09:14:16 am »

I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure the Audigy send its signal through Windows K-mixer which upconverts the stream to 48k to process, then back to 44.1k to output, so you lose some signal purity in using the Audigy. However, if it sounds better to you, then who cares, your ears are the judge.

TimB · « **Reply #12 on:** February 26, 2004, 09:16:30 am »

Agreed that its always fashionable to bash the big dog, AOL, Creative, Microsoft, etc.

I have an M-Audio Audiophile at home and love it. Never a moments trouble and perfect audio in and out.

-=Tim=-

xen-uno · « **Reply #13 on:** February 26, 2004, 09:44:43 am »

Not all Creative cards suck (IMO...they're good cards at reasonable prices).

This baby will take on all comers...

http://www.digit-life.com/archive.shtml?dl20040225#102096

10^-27

Bryan · « **Reply #14 on:** February 26, 2004, 12:43:47 pm »

I agree the sound difference isn't that noticable (if any), at least on my low-end AV receiver. I got the 1st M-Audio card because someone on AVS Forum some time back put the SB Live! cards through some analysis using the proper equipment and reported that some particular parameters of the signal from it's SPDIF port were way out of spec and could potentially damage consumer AV equipment. OTOH, I've never heard of any equipment being damaged by any of them.

I got the other card for the plethora of I/O ports for connecting various equipment to.

Bryan

jleerigby · « **Reply #15 on:** February 26, 2004, 03:14:30 pm »

I just had both cards playing the same track in MC (one in each zone) with exactly the same volume and EQ settings. There was no noticeable difference between the 2 cards. I got my wife to switch the source on the amp so I had no idea which was playing at the time.

I wouldn't exactly call it low end equip either. I was playing an MP3 VBR ripped with MC at high quality.

SPdif digital coax out.
AMP - Denon AVR 3802
Speakers - Bowers & Wilkins DM602.5 and the humongous ASW 675 Sub.

I think I should've stuck with the Audigy, not least because of the extra flexibility included in the surround mixer and EAX console. Also, when the M-Audio is Windows default sound card I don't get any sounds from windows as it's an analog signal that gets sent to my AVR. With the Audigy the windows sounds are sent in digital so I can hear them through the amp.

Bryan · « **Reply #16 on:** February 26, 2004, 06:28:35 pm »

Quote from: JLee on February 26, 2004, 03:14:30 pm

Also, when the M-Audio is Windows default sound card I don't get any sounds from windows as it's an analog signal that gets sent to my AVR. With the Audigy the windows sounds are sent in digital so I can hear them through the amp.

The Windows sounds work on both of mine through the digital ports. One on XP Pro and the other running Win2K. Seems like there was something I had to do to make it work but for the life of me I can't recall what it was.. Nevertheless, if you like the Audigy card then by all means get your money back for the M-Audio. They'll gladly sell you one in the future if you ever need to use one..

Bryan

JimH · « **Reply #17 on:** February 26, 2004, 07:06:29 pm »

Quote from: Mad_Chemist on February 26, 2004, 06:58:59 pm

Try playing some uncompressed music for an extended period of time.

Or compressed with a lossless codec. APE/Monkey's Audio, for instance. Or FLAC or Windows Media Lossless. The sound is identical to a wav file or to the same track from an audio CD.

jleerigby · « **Reply #18 on:** February 27, 2004, 01:06:04 am »

Quote

Nevertheless, if you like the Audigy card then by all means get your money back for the M-Audio. They'll gladly sell you one in the future if you ever need to use one..

I doubt very much that I can get a refund as the card and instruction manual were all shrinkwrap sealed together and the box was celephane wrapped too. So, if anyone out there is wanting a brand new soundcard at good price you know where to come.

jleerigby · « **Reply #19 on:** February 27, 2004, 11:39:17 am »

Quote from: Mad_Chemist on February 26, 2004, 06:58:59 pm

Quote from: JLee on February 26, 2004, 03:14:30 pm
I was playing an MP3 VBR ripped with MC at high quality.

That's your problem. Try playing some uncompressed music for an extended period of time. The difference will become obvious. If all you are going to be playing is MP3s, don't waste your money on a high end card.

Yep, that's what I thought. I started to cringe at the thought of reripping and retagging my whole library to Ape. Before jumping into this massive task (one that's likely to see me in the divorce courts before I can say Monkey's Audio) I thought I should repeat the listening tests.

This time I played a 160 kbps MP3 CBR on the Audigy in Zone 1 (no eq or DSP settings applied). At the same time I used Zone 2 to play the same track from the original CD through the M-Audio. I couldn't percieve any difference and neither could my wife.

Maybe years of listening to loud music has taken it's toll on our ears. ?

Brand New M-Audio Delta DIO 24/96 in search of good home. All those interested PM JLee!

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Author Topic: Which M-Audio soundcard? (Read 4008 times)

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