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Whats a high quality sound card for Home Studios

B

BlingCrosby

Guest
I am building a home studio, and I have a high quality board, nice mics, nice processing, but the Sound card is the engine that will drive this machine. I've read that any Sound Blaster card is crap because it only samples at 44KBits.... I'd like to have a high quality card (without breaking my budget) and would prefer something w/ 1/4" inputs versus 1/8". Any recommendations out there from you pros???
 
Obviously balanced audio is key, I totally get this, I am grounding everything off the drain leg, so I can eliminate any stray rf/voltage, and you can't do this effectively with the unbalanced.
Funny you mentioned M Audio, have been doing alot of research the past few days, and have seen the M Audio looks nice. However I found a E-MU 1212M Sound Card , w/ 1/4" In outs, 24 bit with 192kHz converter. Superior performance at a great price between $129-$159.
A friend of mine is using one (touched base w/ him yesterday) and raves about it, so I purchased one. Will update later on the performance of this card. But thank you for your input.
 
I've been tricked once, make sure that the 1/4 I/O is balanced because I've run into several models that aren't. Usually a balanced card will run you 125 or more. The M-Audio has some street cred as I've seen them used in major market terrestrial radio.

I can't vouch for the EMU line of products but keep in mind they are owned by Creative labs/soundblaster.
 
We use several of the Echo Mia's on both our automation boxes and Encoder boxes. All of them were purchased off Ebay from $60-$80 (never a dude.) They are balanced in and out and the driver is pretty easy to get online. I really like the mixer that comes with it, I like it a lot better than the damn vx222's we got at work and never had the same problems with Audition the Vx's have.

Grab your self a couple of those and you are set!
 
I'll echo (forgive the pun) the Mia recommendation, but just be careful with the drivers. v6.11 is stable, that's what I'm using, and 6.14 is supposed to be OK too. Anything later and there appear to be issues.

Also the install routine has problems with some dual-core PCs, but there's a Microsoft hot-fix that will overcome that.

Despite those two little caveats, the card certainly punches above its weight.
 
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