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Sound Card for BBP Live version

J

jdkes

Hi! I'm not an engineer by any means but I am an audiophile and spend lots of money and time getting my home system sounding the way I want it. I spent countless hours over a 3-month period adjusting BBP to get the sound I wanted after I bought it last year. I'm looking at purchasing a Delta 44 sound card for my home system. I run breakaway broadcast with the Zara music player. I don't do streaming or anything like that. I just want my system to be top of the line because I love audio and sometimes use it for DJ gigs. I am currently giving BBP Live a tryout and so far I love it. I am an audiophile as I said. I don't want to spend allot extra money but I do want a professional card with superb sound. So I would like to know what the pros and cons of the Delta 44 are and their performance with BBP and BBP Live. I'd also like to hear about the MIA cards or any others that work well. I'm running a Dell 4400 Windows pack 3 and aside from internet usage and notepad, it's dedicated to music. The last sound card I bought was a Sound Blaster X-Hi Fi about 2 years ago so it's time to upgrade and I want to upgrade to a true professional card this go around.

Thanks for all your help!
 
jdkes-

Welcome here. Before I comment on the Delta 44, here is one of my favorite cards: the CardDeluxe CDX-01. It may well however be out of your budget.

http://store.digitalaudio.com/merch...ode=DAL&Product_Code=CDX-01&Category_Code=CDX

Talking with other engineers, I've concluded that the Delta 44 is the card that engineers either "love to hate" or "hate to love." It's used by several automation vendors: Wire Ready (for playout I believe), iMediatouch (for time-shift recording, logging, and production mostly) and even for RCS Player 101 (although they recommend the ASI5111). I've installed and used the card myself; I believe that the card is very clean, crisp and overall sounds nice. Used with BBP, I'd think you get some nice results. Others may disagree.

If you need only a single channel of playout, you could also look at the Delta 192 (a little more $) as well as the E-MU 1212M (same price as Delta 44).

Finally, if you do go with the Delta series, be certain to use this driver: Driver: 5.10.00.5057. It's the most stable and will work with SP3:

Good luck!
 
I use Delta 44's in all six of my streaming encoders and have not ever had a single problem. I would recommend them. They are a great value.

You can also get used Digigram VX222's on eBay in the $250 range. I use Digigram in my automation system (Audiovault) and they have been very trouble free for me. So much so, that I put them in all of my Adobe Audition workstations as well.
 
Ok.....I'm being told by a "sound tech" who claims to know about the Delta 44 that I can only use it for recording and that it cannot used for everyday playback of music stored on the computer it's installed on. The example given was "if you have Queen's music stored on the hard drive you cannot use the Delta 44 for playback of their music from that computer." Is this true or is the guy out in space?
If it is true then which professional cards in the $200 - $300 dollar range will work for my purposes?
 
jdkes said:
Ok.....I'm being told by a "sound tech" who claims to know about the Delta 44 that I can only use it for recording and that it cannot used for everyday playback of music stored on the computer it's installed on. The example given was "if you have Queen's music stored on the hard drive you cannot use the Delta 44 for playback of their music from that computer." Is this true or is the guy out in space?
If it is true then which professional cards in the $200 - $300 dollar range will work for my purposes?
Click to expand...

Certainly you can playback. I do it all the time ;)
 
He may be trying to say that he doesn't like the 44's sound. I've seen others write about not using the Delta 44 for playout because of sound quality. It certainly is capable of playing audio out, and I don't mind the sound.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
He may be trying to say that he doesn't like the 44's sound. I've seen others write about not using the Delta 44 for playout because of sound quality. It certainly is capable of playing audio out, and I don't mind the sound.
Click to expand...

Interesting, I think the card sounds quite clean. And when the audio is processed by Breakaway Live, it should sound great.
 
Thank you for all the good information. I plan to make my purchase within the next 10 days. I have also discovered the Mia sound card and I'm told it may out perform the Delta 44. The specific card is here: http://www.echoaudio.com/Products/PCI/MiaMIDI/index.php

I contacted the German manufacturer of the Marian Trace Alpha after reading about it on the Breakaway forum. They are asking $320 for it which includes shipping. Is that price far for that card? I have seen on some other posts on here that many recommend it but it's a little over budget and costly for me right now.

Again thanks for all your help. I want to make a very informed purchase because I intend to use this sound card for the next 3 to 5 years.
 
I've had lots of bad luck with MIA's. I would go with the Delta. 4 out of 5 MIA's I purchased failed (which is what led me to the Delta 44).
 
Delta 44 is a good card! It's very old by now (I bought in 2001) but it's stable, low latency, and should work perfectly for what you plan to use it for, and it certainly works well with Breakaway Live. Using the ASIO mode, you could have under 10 milliseconds latency.

Best regards,
///Leif
 
Which sound card in the $100 - $200 range would you recommend Leif? No better advice than from the creator of the software! ;) ;)
 
konbaasiang said:
Delta 44 is a good card! It's very old by now (I bought in 2001) but it's stable, low latency, and should work perfectly for what you plan to use it for, and it certainly works well with Breakaway Live. Using the ASIO mode, you could have under 10 milliseconds latency.

Best regards,
///Leif
Click to expand...


Well, that endorsement by Leif, the developer of Breakaway, certainly should relieve any doubts about Breakaway and the Delta 44 ;)
 
ChiefOperator said:
konbaasiang said:
Delta 44 is a good card! It's very old by now (I bought in 2001) but it's stable, low latency, and should work perfectly for what you plan to use it for, and it certainly works well with Breakaway Live. Using the ASIO mode, you could have under 10 milliseconds latency.

Best regards,
///Leif
Click to expand...


Well, that endorsement by Leif, the developer of Breakaway, certainly should relieve any doubts about Breakaway and the Delta 44 ;)
Click to expand...
At least with Breakaway Live. The Marian Trace Alpha continues to be the gold standard for Breakaway Broadcast in my experience.
 
Indeed, Bob. Delta 44 can't do 192 kHz at all, so you couldn't use it for MPX -- except of course for the upcoming SSB mode in BBP :). Still no RDS though.

For Breakaway Live, Delta 44 is perfect. 4 analog ins and outs, too.

///Leif
 
mihaip said:
Hello, You can try this card: ONKYO SE-200 PCI LTD
Or the cheaper Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 HiFi - i managed to output MPX (with RDS) from this card with very good results.
I use the RME Fireface 400 for my old ears.
Click to expand...
There are several cards that will output an MPX signal, including the Soundblaster Audigy 2ZS. And on most songs, it works pretty well. But then along comes a song like Three Dog Night - Black And White. If complying with FCC modulation rules is not important (if you hold ANY FCC license--AM,FM or LPFM--it's very important), you can get by with something less than the Marian Trace Alpha card. From experience, the above mentioned song's first few notes will modulate the transmitter at roughly 130%. The key to being able to handle the 'problem' songs comes in having a DC coupled sound card. If it doesn't say "DC Coupled" in the specs and you're going to feed an over the air transmitter with it, do NOT even try it. A several thousand dollar fine will make that $200 Marian sound card look very inexpensive by comparison.
 
For any FCC licensed station, hardware generators for me for MPX Pilot duty. Even one FCC fine er forfeiture is costlier than a good MPX Pilot Generator box.
 
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