emu drivers are much more stable than m-audio? when did that happen? and btw i havent had a single problem with my m-audio drivers, so i dunno how something can be more stalbe than that
About the sound quality… i cant really tell, i havent used emu 1820m. But i think that mostly this sound quality issue is pure hype. I think that if i play something on emu 1820m and audiophile 192 then you wount be able to distinguish what was what.
and besides, that emu card is quite expensive. i wouldnt want to spend 600$ on soundcard.
Anyway, i think people pay too much attention to that tech thing… hell, even audigy 2 will serve you well, you dont need $$ soundcards to compose good music. Have some ok soundcard and some ok monitors and you are good to roll. Being a gear junky wount make you better composer.
sometimes i think myself that ohh, if i buy this new gear then i will compose better music but the truth is, i wount
NNNOOOO! Dude I had an audigy 2 with the breakout box deal- I could not for the life of get below 20-30 ms latency- didn’t matter what I did… that thing was a big piece of caca!
I don’t know about going with the whole 1820m deal, cause you can get the same converters on a 1212m for $179- that’s what I’m using right now and it’s a sick card… the drivers are really solid on it too. They even have uber solid 64 bit drivers out too. But you are right- a descent card and some good reference monitors and that about what’s good enough to bang out sick sick tunes with a good mix… really just about any monitors with a descent frequency range will be OK I suppose if you are used to them and know how to work with them. I used to work with my internal laptop card for two years and a pair of 15 inch pioneer speakers, and I made tunes with that, but all my recordings had internal buzzing sounds from my computer in them. Same with the audigy. I hear you on the whole thinking a certain piece of gear will make you a better composer or something silly- never is going to happen, but the patchmix deal with the emu cards is a heel of alot of help for work flow and has greatly helped my productivity as I can put sends from any channel I want to any other channel I want. I mean I can get up to 16 progs running on their own asio channels with send to wherever I want, so long as the prog lets me decide which asio channels I want to use as inputs. This maens I don’t have to close out a program after exporting waves just to work on it in a new one, I can just have everything I need laid out on the table and ready to go.
The drivers are pretty stable on M-Audio but i did have driver issues with my old Delta 66 and Revolution but there was allways a way round the issues,
Just Hype LOL>
You do not know how the 1820m sounds so how can you say you wouldent be able to tell whats what?My m8 has a audiophile 192 and it doeas not sound no where near as clean or as crisp or as powerfull as the Digidesignr’s ProTools HD 192 I/O coverters on this 1820m even lo it does sound nice dont get me wrong in fact the main defference is in the mid range and bottom end but the tops there is not much diffrence ,
Like i said the 1820m is the best card you can get for $550
by a long shot the audiophile 192 is a very good card also but the Emu is alot better all round ive allways had problems with m-audios support i know thats not the case with everyone and i also know that Emu’s support has not been that good in the past either but i have never had any issues with any emu products,
do you have exact same monitors and room acoustics as your friend? or whatever that m8 stands for…
im not saying that there is no difference, i havent A/B them, but i have A/B some other cards about what i have heard similar claims like in your quote and when i A/B-d them myself i didnt hear any drastic difference… maybe just a slight if any
Agreed, I doubt you are likely to notice that much of a difference between cards as you approach this level of quality, certainly not enough to have a drastic effect on your tune-making anyway, I survived on a shitty mistubishi amp from a car-boot for over 5 years, and wrote my best stuff on it.
I’m sure you’ve got enough opinions to make your own decisions anyway, and it will merely be a case of how much you’re willing to spend.
P.S. Trepain: I will work on M.S. pt2 uploading. Bit more hetic this section, hope you enjoy it
My m8=mate who has the audiophile 192 comes round with his pc every month or so to do some recordings in the studio we use Genelec 1038B &Mackie HR626 monitors,
they sound diferent, very diferent
they have similar freq. response in RMAA5.5
but sound verry different,
the 1820m has a mid frequency like Waves L3 , that compresses the mids, to give them more presence
the M-Audio sounds less compressed mids and less presense which is more suited for vocals,
The M-audio sounds more plastic better for techno.etc
Where as the EMU sounds more real,
1820m in some songs sounds more open because the mids compression or something that makes it sound more mid.frequency
the M-Audiophile 192 sounds more hard limited up-front in the mid.and highs mostly
I like the dsp patchMix of the 1820m, not for dummys
verry flexible & usefull, i like it loads
,
Im not really playing the 192 down at all its another fantastic card its just not as good as the 1820m
Now do you you want me to do a full review or something
i just found a review on sound-on-sound and the author agrees with you that 1820m has more focused sound, but he also says that the difference is not that big.
this is what he have to say
so i guess it comes down to whether you are willing to pay double the price for that difference or not.
and btw, im glad to hear that emu drivers are stable now, cause to date they where notariously known to me as good cards with very unstable drivers…
The emu sounds better yes and you get alot more options,
The emu offers
from nusystems>
Flexible connectivity with 18 audio inputs and 20 outputs, 32 channels of MIDI I/O, Word Clock, SMPTE and MTC sync, plus a FireWirer port for seamless integration with your entire studio
Two premium TFProT mic preamps with Mic/Line/Hi-Z inputs with 40db of gain/attenuation and 48V phantom power - plug guitars, keyboards and microphones straight into your system
where as the 192 you only get:
from nusytems:
2 balanced analog inputs (1/4” TRS)
2 balanced analog outputs (1/4” TRS)
S/PDIF digital I/O (coaxial RCA connectors) with 2-channel PCM
Digital I/O supports surround-encoded AC-3 and DTS pass-through
only 16-channel MIDI I/O
I could not right music on the 192 becuase the options are so limited,I could no way work with 2 balanced analog inputs and2 balanced analog outputs,
and you have to deal with wires all over the place at the back of your pc
you will have to spend more money on a firewire 1814,
The emu you have endless options that i could go on about for ages,
If you just use software and are in ya home studio and dont need to do serious recordings and havent got the hardware etc and dont have the money get the m-audio,
If you want a card with endless options that is suitable for recording studios i mean serious recordings all the in and outs etc and dont want to limit your self then get the EMu its the much better option by far if you have the money,
These cards shouldent even be compared becuase of the limits you have with ins and outs on the 192 compared to the 1820m
add a audio dock \plus a sync card to the 192 and you maybe able to compare them.and im sure the 192 would be round the same price if not more then the emu with thesse 2 vital 2 things added
yes, sure… if you need a lot of I/O etc then audiophile isnt the right choice. i was just talking about sound quality and its effect on your music making.
i can only state that my e-mu’s (0404 and 1212m) really are impressing the **** out of me since i got them… very nice cards… but i also know ppl who are very content with their m-audio cards, so there you go… another useless post from me… … anyway indeed the onboard fx with the e-mu… i dunno never got to get them working the way they are supposed to, although that is far more probable my mistake then e-mu’s//…
But i really want to add ( and i know it is the soundquality that matters for you in this case) that if you buy e-mu 1212m for instance yuo will also be the proud owner of emulator x, which imho really is like an icing on the cake , and really something to take in mind before purchasing a card…
personally the 1212m was one of the best deals in musical equipment i ever made…
Remains for me to tell you i have REALLY crappy speakers ( ask Mlon, he has known them since he was 19 i think… …) but i have REALLY good headphones (Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro ) and i know the speakers so well after all these years that this post maybe isn’t as useless as i first stated:)
Your having problem with the DSP FX? i maybe able to help,
give me a private message or something with whats wrong,
And if you want better sound quality get a card yes but also get a bit of hardware to go with renoise like a drummachine(Jomox xbase 09 etc, becuase it makes renoise sound so much stronger
the “m” series of E-MU cards offers the high quality ad/da-converters only … it’s really a crisp clear sound with a great dynamic range. 2 years ago I sold my terratec ewx and and bought the 1212m and I was so much impressed … I can recommend the “m”-cards but you shouldn’t expect to much from the dsp-fx!
I would go for a Proteus X - you can get them for about £100, and they come with a huge number of good, editable sounds (the Proteus 2000 soundset, 1,024 sounds), I can easily get 5ms latency on an Athlon XP2500, and great sound quality. (Not that that matters - you’d have to go back to a Soundblaster 16 for soundquality to be an issue). I don’t see how the MAudio card can compare to the Proteus X.
But all that matters is your ability to write good songs - I wouldn’t spend too much time worrying about ‘quality’ of the soundcard, it can’t write the songs for you!
when did that happen? and btw i havent had a single problem with my m-audio drivers, so i dunno how something can be more stalbe than that 
but the truth is, i wount 
NNNOOOO! Dude I had an audigy 2 with the breakout box deal- I could not for the life of get below 20-30 ms latency- didn’t matter what I did… that thing was a big piece of caca! 
