[64studio-devel] Lower priced pci-audio-interfaces with prof. level balanced connections and 192 kHz [u]

[Daniel James]

Hi Lee, hi Marc,

 >> I've heard the Audiophile 192 isn't as good
>> as the older 24/96 PCI model

> It's also not supported or poorly supported by ALSA (depending who you
> ask) due to lack of docs from M-Audio.

Right, the Audiophile 24/96 it is then :-)

Although I can see the theoretical benefits of 192KHz recording, it's 
not like even 96Khz has really caught on with end-users. I bought an 
SACD/DVD-Audio player some time ago, but I haven't seen a single disc I 
actually wanted to buy and listen to in either of those formats.

The interest from music listeners these days seems to be at the low end 
of the quality spectrum, with lossy compressed files from internet 
services. So I think if 64 Studio users record at 96KHz and downsample 
to 48KHz for FLAC encoding then they'll be ahead of the end-user 
adoption curve for a while yet.

On the subject of balanced analogue I/O, the Audiophile doesn't have 
this (it uses RCA connectors), but if the mixer is physically close to 
the computer this shouldn't matter too much. If you really need balanced 
I/O, for example if the mixer is in a different room to the computer or 
you have problems with electrical noise, then I'd suggest going for the 
Delta 1010.

Cheers!

Daniel